Is the drunkard curable? Dr. Gill, a British expert, in a recent report
says that mental recoveries in a considerable number never go beyond
a certain point, and he classes nearly 50 per cent of his patients as
higher-grade imbeciles, while many others are weak-minded and unable to
work--perhaps congenital neurasthenics. He goes on to say:
Even in the smaller number classed as normal men, the mental
recovery is very slow, so that the advertised methods of quick
cure are fallacious. Notwithstanding the fact that men of
great or average intelligence might be afflicted, most of our
inebriates are congenital defectives--even the drunken genius
is a warped mental specimen. The inebriety is a result of their
condition and not a cause. How dishonest, then, it is, to hold
out the promise of cure, as many of the sanatoriums do! The
present trend of thought among lawmakers is in the direction
of the confinement of inebriates for life, and it seems to be
founded on sound pathologic findings.
(1599)