person to have become an habitual drunkard, or so far addicted to the
intemperate use of narcotics or stimulants as to have lost the power of
self-control, then said court shall order such person to be taken to
some inebriate asylum within this State, for treatment, care and
custody, for a term not less than four months, and not more than twelve
months; but if said person shall be found to be a dypsomaniac, said term
of commitment shall be for the period of three years: _provided,
however_, that the Court of Probate shall not in either case make such
order without the certificate of at least two respectable practising
physicians, after a personal examination, made within one week before
the time of said application or said commitment, which certificate shall
contain the opinion of said physicians that such person has become, as
the case may be, a dypsomaniac, an habitual drunkard, or has, by reason
of the intemperate use of narcotics or stimulants, lost the power of
self-control, and requires the treatment, care and custody of some
inebriate asylum, and shall be subscribed and sworn to by said
physicians before an authority empowered to administer oaths."


LOSS TO THE STATE IN NOT ESTABLISHING ASYLUMS

In a brief article in the _Quarterly Journal of Inebriety_, for 1877,
Dr. Dodge thus emphasizes his views of the importance to the State of
establishing asylums to which drunkards may be sent for treatment:
"Every insane man who is sent to an asylum, is simply removed from doing
harm, and well cared for, and rarely comes back to be a producer again.
But inebriates (the hopeful class) promise immeasurably more in their
recovery. They are, as inebriates, non-producers and centres of disease,
bad sanitary and worse moral surroundings. All their career leads down
to crime and poverty. The more drunkards, the more courts of law, and