1. The first condition of recovery is a prompt and permanent abandonment of
the ruinous habit. Without a faithful adherence to this prohibitory law on
the part of the patient all medication on the part of the physician will
assuredly fail. The patient must plainly understand that future prospects,
character, health, and life itself, depend on an unfaltering resistance to
the morbid solicitation; with the assurance, however, that a due
perseverance will eventually render what now seems like a resistless and
overwhelming {456} propensity, not only controllable but perfectly
loathsome and undesirable.
2. Keep the mind employed by interesting the patient in the various topics
of the day, and social features of the community.
3. Plenty of bodily out of door exercise, hoeing in the garden, walking, or
working on the farm; of course not too heavy work must be indulged in.
4. If the patient is weak and very much emaciated, cod liver oil is an
excellent remedy.
5. DIET. The patient should live principally on brown bread, oat meal,
graham crackers, wheat meal, cracked or boiled wheat, or hominy, and food
of that character. No meats should be indulged in whatever; milk diet if
used by the patient is an excellent remedy. Plenty of fruit should be
indulged in; dried toast and baked apples make an excellent supper. The
patient should eat early in the evening, never late at night.