The history of the first inebriate asylum in the world / by its founder [Jonathan Edward Turner]. An account of his indictment, also a sketch of the Woman's national hospital, by its founder.

  • Turner, J. Edward, 1822-1889.
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The history of the first inebriate asylum in the world / by its founder [Jonathan Edward Turner]. An account of his indictment, also a sketch of the Woman's national hospital, by its founder. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    49/512 (page 45)
    j ble than the morbid appetite of the inebriate; an appe- j tite which leads its victim to forego food, raiment, and i every i)h3^sical comfort, to spend his last farthing for j alcoliolic stimulants even when his emaciated body is j)erishing for the -want of its natural sustenance? Sni’ely such a malady of body and mind needs more than a temperance boardingdionse for its cure! We might as well attempt to open a boardingdionse for suicidal cases of insanity, and to expect success in such an enterprise, as to attempt to treat the inebriate Avithout a thoroughly organized hospital. Every j^rinciple of sound political economy, as well as an enlightened Christianity, shows that the State is bound to provide li'l)erally for the con- trol and medical treatment of the inebriate. The drunkard has already paid to the State the revenue arising from the excise law (for it is not the vender, but the consumer who pays this revenue), a revenue sufficient in amount to provide asylums for his control, medical treatment, and cure. Yet the State, or, we should have said, pulilic opinion, permits him to die in the jail as a criminal, and in the poor-house as a pauper, or to perish in the street, or to entail upon his posterity all the morbid conditions of this malady. What better use could the State make of the revenue arising from the excise law than to pay it back to the heart-stricken wife, and to the Avorse than fatherless children Avho have l)een robbed of eveiy com- fort of life to pay this revenue to the counties? Should it not be restored to them l>y giving back from this Asy- lum a- AA^ell husljand and a sane father? If the State permits a revenue to arise from this ti-affic, it should amply ]>roAdde for the disease it creates, l>y l)uilding and founding the most complete hospitals in the Avorld, cost Avhat they may. Our almshouses receive this revenue, yet there has never been a case of inebriety Avhich has