THE DRINK PROBLEM. 



BY THOMAS DAVIDSON CROTHERS. 



[Thomas Davidson Crothers, professor of nervous and mental diseases in the New 

 York school of clinical medicine, became assistant professor of the practice of medi- 

 cine at Albany medical college in 1871; becoming assistant physician in the New 

 York state inebriate asylum in 1875, he has since made a specialty of inebriety, and 

 since 1880 has been superintendent of the Walnut Lodge hospital for the treatment 

 of alcohol and opium inebriates ; he is editor of the Journal of Inebriety, a quarterly 

 journal for medical study of inebriety and he is generally regarded as the leading 

 American authority on this subject.] 



Some general conception of this problem may be obtained 

 from the single statistical fact that in one year over half a mil- 

 lion persons were arrested in this country charged with in- 

 toxication and petty crimes associated or following from in- 

 ebriety. It is a reasonable assumption that at least half as 

 many more persons used spirits to excess that did not come 

 under legal notice. If to this be added the opium, chloral, 

 and other drug takers, the numbers will reach enormous pro- 

 portions. Admitting the possible errors that may exist in 

 such statistics, there are many facts and reasons for believing 

 that the extent and fatality of the drink evil are more serious 

 and of greater magnitude than have ever been represented. 

 Personal observation in almost every town and community 

 confirms this; and each year the nature and extent of this evil 

 become more and more prominent. 



There is apparent in the public mind a growing sense of 

 danger which is manifest in temperance agitations and various 

 efforts to neutralize and break up this evil. This feeling of 

 alarm has concentrated into various great crusade movements 

 and organized societies, with a vast machinery of county, 

 state, and national divisions. A political party fully organized 

 is in the field, with the central object of obtaining power to 

 control and break up this drink disease. Great church so- 

 cieties are urging moral means and remedies for the same pur- 

 pose. Revival orators are holding meetings and creating a 

 public sentiment of alarm in all parts of the country. In this 

 country and Canada there are eighty newspapers and maga- 

 zines published, weekly and monthly, exclusively devoted to 



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