Up to this time a great deal of the treatment has been experimental; and there is still much difference of opinion among physicians and superintendents in regard to the best means of cure.

But, on two important points, all are nearly in agreement.

The first is in the necessity for an immediate and ABSOLUTE WITHDRAWAL OF ALL INTOXICANTS FROM THE PATIENT, no matter how long he may have used them; and the second in the necessity of his entire abstinence therefrom after leaving the institution.

_The cure never places a man back where he was before he became subject to the disease; and he can never, after his recovery, taste even the milder forms of alcoholic beverage without being exposed to the most imminent danger of relapse._ The great value of an asylum where the victim of intemperance can be placed for a time beyond the reach of alcohol is thus stated by Dr.
Carpenter: "Vain is it to recall the motives for a better course of conduct, to one who is already familiar with them all, but is destitute of the will to act upon them; the seclusion of such persons from the reach of alcoholic liquors, for a sufficient length of time to _free the blood from its contamination, to restore the healthful nutrition of the brain and to enable the recovered mental vigor to be wisely directed, seems to afford the only prospect of reformation:_ and this cannot be expected to be permanent, unless the patient determinately adopts and steadily acts on the resolution to abstain from that which, _if again indulged in, will be poison, alike to his body and to his mind_." In the study of inebriety and the causes leading thereto, much important information has been gathered by the superintendents and physicians connected with these establishments.

Dr.D.G.Dodge, late Superintendent of the New York State Inebriate Asylum, read a paper before the American Association for the Cure of Inebriates, in 1876, on "Inebriate Asylums and their Management," in which are given the results of many years of study, observation and experience.