ABSTRACT
Dr. Hammond states that there is no medicine or combination of medicines that will cure a person of the habit of drunkenness. Most persons get drunk because they want to; others because they cannot help it with the means of combating their inclination. A person, for instance, is induced to smoke a cigar after dinner. The inducement, whatever it may be, constitutes the impression made upon the brain. Any sensible person, whether physician or layman, will see at once that such a habit as this is not within the range of cure by medicine. Many persons proclaim that drunkenness is always due to a wilful criminal impulse, which can only be cured by punishment and suffering. Some men are born drunkards, some achieve drunkenness, and some have drunkenness thrust upon them. To attempt to cure the confirmed inebriate by appealing merely to his moral sense as against the morbid craving of a diseased stomach and brain would seem futile.
