THE DRINK PROBLEM ig? 



the direction of others. Like cases of mania, smallpox, 1 >^:)hus 

 fever, and contagious diseases, they need isolation and treat- 

 ment in special surroundings. We want a clear public recog- 

 nition of these facts; then means will be adopted to prevent 

 the victim from going on to chronic stages before any efforts 

 are made to help him. 



The legal efforts to cure this evil are more fatal and dan- 

 gerous than the saloon, by increasing the very evil they seek 

 to remove. Thus saloons are Ucensed and protected, and, 

 both directly and indirectly, the use of spirits is encouraged 

 and made attractive. The victim is excused and tolerated 

 until he reaches a chronic stage, and violates some law; then 

 he is fined and imprisoned under conditions that intensify 

 and increase his disease. Statistics show that ninety nine per 

 cent of all victims who are punished by the courts the first 

 time by fines and imprisonment relapse, and appear again and 

 again for the same offense as long as they live. They receive 

 the name of rounders, and are not infrequently sentenced 

 himdreds of times in the course of years. The station house, 

 jail, and machinery of law, from the absence of physical and 

 mental aids, are fatal in their influence. 



Yet pubhc sentiment hugs this terrible delusion of vice, 

 and sustains the police courts in efforts that make it more 

 and more impossible for the victims to recover. Thus the 

 law destroys the inebriate by punishment as a criminal, and 

 the church disowns and drives him away as a sinner; society 

 looks down upon him as having a vice that can be controlled 

 at will. It is the same old superstitious theory of a theolog- 

 ical or moral origin of evil, which from time to time has been 

 used to explain every phenomenon of nature, that sustains 

 and keeps up this delusion. 



Science has opened up a new field of remedial forces, and 

 points out a solution of this drink problem, in special hospitals 

 organized as industrial mihtary schools. Here the inebriates 

 may be housed and kept for a lifetime if they are incurable. 

 These hospitals are to be organized with every means to build 

 up both body and mind, to protect the victim from himself, 

 and to provide every hygienic and physiological agency req- 

 uisite for a normal life. 



