his distressing symptoms, and he took nourishment, quinine by the mouth, and stimulants. The next day he was purged again with salts, followed by whiskey and soup, and he was placed upon a mixture contaning nitre and spirits of turpentine. After taking 15 grains of quinine he rebelled against it and it was discontinued. Notwithstanding this purging his pulse fell from day to day, and now, March 17th, his skin is uniformly warm, pulse 80, and tongue cleaning, begs for nourishment, urine stained with bile, but clearing up, and he is much stronger. He was ordered to continue the turpentine mixture, with soup, whiskey as relished, and bowels to be kept open by enemata or salts; the quinine to be resumed and continued in doses of two grains three times a day.

About the middle of November, after the cold weather of winter set in, pneumonia of a grave and fatal character appeared, and a number of deaths, mostly negroes, occurred from this disease.

The coldest weather of the season occurred about Christmas, and the thermometer on the morning of the 24th of December registered 120 at sunrise. During January, February and March, the weather has been moderate, with a prevailing south wind, and abundant and frequent rains since the middle of February.

Catarrhal affections, with a special tendency to the glandular apparatus of the throat, together with a general depressed state of the system, often culminating in bilious vomiting, have been the prevailing diseases of the present year.

Some four or five suspicious looking cases of sore throat appeared in the same locality about the last of February, accompanied by high fever, vivid redness of the fauces, and great difficulty in swallowing. One case was accompanied by a scarlet rash upon the face and chest, which was followed by desquamation. Another was followed by anasarca, which yielded to purging, digitalis, and nitre. All of them recovered.

DRUNKENNESS AND ITS REMEDIES.

BY BENJAMIN H. RIGGS, M. D., OF SELMA.

It has fallen to my lot to report to you at this session upon the subject of "Drunkenness and its Remedies."

Habitual drunkenness has a medical aspect. It frequently comes under the care of the physican, and produces a sad state of moral and mental and physical infirmity. The body of the habitual drunkard is in an unnatural or diseased state. That habitual drunkenness has a medical aspect, or rather is a disease, is clear, from the abundant evidence in medical literature that it has claimed the constant and earnest attention of medical men in all times of the past. We are all familiar with the affecting pictures of the one who suf fers from delirium tremens or mania-a-potu, the acute pathological condition produced by a prolonged spree. Neither is the name dipsomania, a morbid and insane thirst for intoxicating fluids, an unusual term with us. Methomania, that soft sounding word which means madness or insanity, resulting from excessive drinking, again is not unfamiliar to our ears. A word more used, but still expressive, temulentia (temulence) which signifies drunkenness from alcohol, may also be found in frequent use in the literature of this subject. These names, in themselves, bear abundant testimony that medical men regard this state as one of disease, but their numbers and variety attest also a groping about in an anxious search for its true pathology. It would not be proper for me, in an article like this, to enter fully into a disquisition upon the subject before me. I assert the proposition that drunkenness is a disease, and has its law, as other diseases have. Its "law of origin, continuance and result." And the object of this paper is to impress upon those present, true, humanitarian views on the question, in order that the unfortunate sufferer may receive that aid which he requires to disenthral himself of the malady which enchains him. The causes of temulence are hereditary or acquired. In the language of another, "There is a sense of physical or mental unrest which may result from hereditary infirmity or predisposition, from an undue exercise of the intellectual or emotional powers; from business trials, or domestic discontent, and from a variety of other causes. Second.There is a desire for speedy relief, and a strong tendency to seek efficient artificial support in the most convenient form, which is alco

hol. As the result of indulgence, there is intoxication which has its varieties and stages. * By this intoxication once produced, there is some more mischief done than the simple creation of an appetite for stimulants; the equilibrium of the passions has been more or less disturbed; the acuteness of our moral perceptions has been blunted; our will power has been weakened 1; and, by so far as this is the case, by so far are we the less men"-by so far we are diseased, I add. The frequent repetition of alcoholic intoxication brings about physical and mental disease of a marked character. One of the most potent causes of intoxication is an inherent longing want for stimulants on the part of man. I say an inherent or innate desire for stimulants on the part of the human animal. A glance at the different nations of the world will satisfy us of this: all nations have their peculiar stimulants. "Whis key and brandy are the intoxicants of America, Russia, Scotland and Ireland; ale and beer of England, Germany, Japan, and Egypt; wine of France and Italy; bonza of Nubia; pulque of Mexico; tuka of Kamschatka; betil of Polynesia; arrack of Africa and Hindoostan; opium and shamshu of China and Turkey; banque and hashish of Arabia and the Grecian Archipelago; cocoa leaves of Peru; palm leaves of the palm countries; hyosciamus of Syria; rue of the Crimean Valley; and in more recent times, ether and chloroform, among the cultivated and refined of our own country. It thus appears clear that the production of intoxicating beverages or drugs is restricted to no clime or country. It is as widely spread as the existence of language."—(The Probe, by Joseph Parrish, M. D.)

The application of the foregoing is as follows: There is a constitutional desire in man for artificial stimulants, and this desire, when indulged in profusely, produces a condition of mental and bodily disease or insanity, known by us as dipsomania, methomania, or temulentia. This is the decision of all who have studied about or written upon the subject.

The plan of treatment suggested by the above is two-fold: preventive, and curative or reformatory. If the demand for stimuli be inherent, it is useless to attempt a universal temperance reform, or, in other words, it is useless to expect good from the temperance pledges of modern times. People will take stimulants, and it seems best to me to let them have that stimulant in the cheapest and least injurious way. I know, with the information before me, no better means of preventing habitual drunkenness with its manifold evils than the production and general use of light, cheap wines. After the habit is once formed, I know of no better means for its curative treatment than the plan suggested below, as proposed by Dr. Bryce.

It has been demonstrated that reformatory establishments or hospitals for inebriates do much towards curing aud alleviating this firmly seated malady. I have seen the annual reports of the Sanitarian at Media, Pennsylvania, a private institution for the cure of

inebriates, under the charge of Dr. Joseph Parrish, and the New York Inebriate's Hospital, and both show a large and encouraging per centage of recoveries.

The plan adopted at Media is to strengthen the moral naturethe force of will-by seclusion, pleasant recreations and occupations, and invigorating the physical nature by medical treatment, and endeavoring to bring his body into a healthy state by the means of the Russian or Turkish bath daily administered. Thus by invigorating the body, cleansing and stimulating the skin and the sluggish internal viscera, by abstinence from alcoholic or narcotic stimuli and pleasant intellectual pursuits, they endeavor, in three months -a course—to so fortify the moral nature, by strengthening the physical organization, that the patient will be able to go forth again into the world to do battle with his appetites and "temptations without." I do not think the course adopted at these institutions sufficiently long. Three months is not long enough to effect much good, and their charges, where they charge at all, are too high to be generally made available. While engaged upon this report a friend handed me a copy of the "Seventh Annual Report of the Alabama Insane Hospital," made to the State Legislature. I found the subject before us so forcibly and admirably discussed therein, that I felt that it would be needless for me to say much, as most of you have seen, or will doubtless see, this able document. Dr. Peter Bryce therein advocates the establishment in our State of a formatory for Inebriates." This was the object of my own report. I will close by copying his plan :

"Re

"Assuming that the civil authorities have power, and that it is their duty to prevent the commission of crime at all hazards, by the abridgement, if need be, of the liberty of the individual, we are brought at once to what seems to be the only safe and rational treatment of methomania. I should like to see established in Alabama a reformatory for inebriates, of all classes, under the jurisdic. tion of the civil courts. The facts might properly come before the grand jury, and, upon the finding of a true bill, the case should be duly investigated by a jury impanneled specially with a view to its competency to examine and decide the same. If the allegations are established by proof the inebriate should be committed for a term not less than two nor more than five years to the reformatory, and be supported there at the expense of the State The treatment should be conducted by an educated physician, under a board of intelligent trustees. A part of the moral treatment should consist in the regular performance of skilled, manual labor, in which each patient should be compelled to engage, the proceeds of which should support the institution. Voluntary inebriates should be received without the exposure of a public trial, on the same conditions as those sent by order of the courts, on certificate of a justice of the peace that the applicant is a volunteer, and that the term of treat

ment has been determined by two intelligent physicians. Inebriates, who are willing and able to pay their expenses in the reformatory, should receive extra accommodations, and pursue, with the consent of the medical superintendent, such literary, manual or other occupation as their education, taste, and previous habits of life might indicate. Thorough discipline would be indispensable to successful management, but it should not be unnecessarily harsh nor exacting; nor should the institution be allowed to degenerate, in any respect, into a mere punitory establishment. Only such requirements and restrictions as are absolutely necessary to compel each patient to follow a trade, to obey constituted authority, to carry out the ordinary hygienic rules and regulations of such an establishment, should be imposed. The officers and nurses should be the best of their kind, and selected as in hospitals for the insane, with a view to their fitness, intelligence, and capacity for the work. In general terms, the qualifications for admission into this admirable institution, should be the excessive, persistent, or regular periodical use of alcoholic stimulants, to the neglect of other business, and domestic obligations, the impairment of general health, of mind or body, and the habitual failure to observe the proprieties of life at home or abroad. Such is a general outline of a reformatory for inebriates, which I believe to be not only eminently practicable, but absolutely essential in the cure of a disease, of all others, the most intractable and ineradicable. Inebriate asylums, upon the voluntary system alone, when the time of treatment is restricted to one year, however grand, imposing and complete their appointments, must necessarily from the very nature of the disease which they profess to treat, prove failures in the end. No self-imposed restraint can stay the victim in his onward course to destruction.. Nothing but the strong arm of the law can reach his case. Time, likewise, is necessary to remove the cerebral impression upon which we have shown methomania to depend. Reforms, extending over one, two and even many years, followed by relapse, debauchery, and death, are not unfamiliar to many of us, and lead us to condemn most emphatically any system of cure that does not extend over several years at least. Apart from the direct curative results of such an institution as I have described, its moral effect upon the habitual drinker and the novice, in restraining the habit within proper limits, or intending to break it up before it becomes fixed, and upon the young, especially those who have inherited the tendency, can hardly be properly estimated. The danger of relapsing, too, which we have shown to be so imminent, even in those who have undergone treatment, and are restored, will be materially lessened by the mere presence of so formidable an agent."

As the result of my reflections upon this important subject I am led to fully endorse the views set forth and advocated above by Dr. Bryce, and hope this association will take steps to impress this matter upon the attention of the Legislature, and the thinking public of the State of Alabama.

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