indicating great prosperity and success, notwithstanding the depression
of the times. Among the patients received at these asylums, broken-down
merchants, bankers, business men, who are inebriates of recent date, and
chronic cases that have been moderate drinkers for many years, seem to
be more numerous. The explanation is found in the peculiar times in
which so many of the business men are ruined, and the discharge of a
class of employees whose uncertain habits and want of special fitness
for their work make them less valuable. Both of these classes drift to
the inebriate asylum, and, if not able to pay, finally go to insane
hospitals and disappear.

"Another class of patients seem more prominent this year, namely, the
hard-working professional and business men, who formerly went away to
Europe, or some watering-place, with a retinue of servants; now they
appear at our retreats, spend a few months, and go away much restored.
The outlook was never more cheery than at present, the advent of several
new asylums, and the increased usefulness of those in existence, with
the constant agitation of the subject among medical men at home and
abroad, are evidence of great promise for the future. Of the Journal we
can only say that, as the organ of the American Association for the Cure
of Inebriates, it will represent the broadest principles and studies
which the experience of all asylums confirm, and independent of any
personal interest, strive to present the subject of inebriety and its
treatment in its most comprehensive sense."




CHAPTER IX.