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Grappling with the Monster

Creator: Arthur, T. S. (Timothy Shay), 1809-1885
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The general rule, on the reception of a patient, is to cut off at once and altogether the use of alcohol in every form. "More," says the doctor, "can be done by diet and medicine, than can be obtained by a compromise in the moderate use of stimulants for a limited period." It is a mistake, he adds, to suppose "that any special danger arises from stopping the accustomed stimulus. Alcohol is a poison, and we should discontinue its use at once, as it can be done with safety and perfect impunity, except in rare cases." To secure all the benefits to be derived from medical treatment, "we should have," says Dr. Dodge, "institutions for the reception of inebriates, where total abstinence can be rigidly, but judiciously enforced for a sufficient length of time, to test the curative powers of absolute restraint from all intoxicating drinks. When the craving for stimulants is irresistible, it is useless to make an attempt to reclaim and cure the drunkard, _unless the detention is compulsory_, and there is complete restraint from all spirituous or alcoholic stimulants." REMOVAL FROM TEMPTATION. In regard to the compulsory power that should inhere in asylums for the cure of drunkenness, there is little difference of opinion among those
The Royal Game of the Ombre

The Royal Game of the Ombre. Written At the Request of divers Honourable Persons. London Printed for Thomas Palmer, at the Crown in Westminster-Hall, 1665. The Royal Game of the Ombre. L'Ombre is a Spanish Game at Cards, as much as to say, The Man: so he who undertakes to play the Game, sayes Jo so l'Ombre, or, I am the Man. And 'tis a common saying with the Spaniards, (alluding to the name) that the Spanish l'Ombre as far surpasses the French le Beste, as a Man do's a Beast, There are divers sorts of it, of which, this (which we shall only treat of, and which chiefly is in vogue) is called the Renegado, for reasons better supprest then known. _How many can play at it, and with what Cards they are to play._ There can only three play at it, and they are dealt nine Cards a piece: so
who have had experience in their management. They have more faith in time than in medicine, and think it as much the duty of the State to establish asylums for the treatment of drunkenness as for the treatment of insanity. "The length of time necessary to cure inebriation," says Dr. Dodge, "is a very important consideration. A habit covering five, ten, fifteen or twenty years, cannot be expected to be permanently eradicated in a week or a month. The fact that the excessive use of stimulants for a long period of time has caused a radical change, physically, mentally and morally, is not only the strongest possible proof that its entire absence is necessary, but, also, that it requires a liberal allowance of time to effect a return to a normal condition. The shortest period of continuous restraint and treatment, as a general rule, should not be less than six months in the most hopeful cases, and extending from one to two years with the less hopeful, and more especially for the class of periodical drinkers, and those with an hereditary tendency." A well-directed inebriate asylum not only affords, says the same authority, "effectual removal of the patient from temptations and associations which surrounded him in the outer world, but by precept and example it teaches him that he can gain by his reformation, not the ability to drink moderately and with the least safety, _but the power to abstain altogether_. With the restraint imposed by the institution, and the self-restraint accepted on the part of the patient, are remedial agents from the moment he enters the asylum, growing stronger and more effective day by day, until finally he finds _total abstinence not only