SUGGESTIONS AS TO TREATMENT OF ALCOHOLISM.

The more thorough pharmacologic studies that have been made of ethyl alcohol in the last few years have placed it in the class of anesthetics with chloroform and ether, and displaced it from its former association as a stimulant with strychnia and digitalis. This most important fact must be borne in mind in considering the therapy of its poisonous effects. We may recognize three forms of alcoholism from a therapeutic standpoint: 1, acute alcoholic intoxication; 2, acute alcoholic delirium or alcoholic mania, and, 3, chronic alcoholism. These types of poisoning each alike demand for their successful treatment the immediate withdrawal of the alcohol. In my earlier experience with alcoholism, thirty years ago, I withdrew the alcohol gradually, under the impression that it was a stimulant, and that danger would follow any other course, but in later years a more abundant clinical experience has satisfied me that this plan was an