"On January 26th, 1896, I entered your institution. I am ashamed to say that for five years I had drunk one quart of whiskey a day. On January 28th, 1896, I took my last drink." So runs a typical testimonial to the once-famous Keeley Institute in the cornbelt town of Dwight, Ill., long a Mecca for drunkards who wanted to get out of John Barleycorn's clutches.
Last week the Keeley Institute celebrated its 60th anniversary. Before a small crowd of enthusiastic but sober alumni, Director James Henry Oughton Jr. unveiled a bronze plaque of Founder Leslie E. Keeley, a Civil War surgeon who announced his cure in 1879. With his famed slogan, "Drunkenness is a disease and I can cure it," and his "secret" injections of gold chloride, Dr. Keeley amassed a fortune of over $1,000,000. During the 'gos, Keeley clubs flourished all over the U. S., proud Keeley alumni sported shiny gold buttons, preached excitingly confessional sermons to female temperance societies.
Unvarying is the traditional Keeley routine. An incoming inebriate pays $160, plus room and board, must stay for 31 days. His whiskey ration is gradually tapered off: eight ounces the first day, six ounces the second, four ounces the third, none from then on. Four times a day he gets gold chloride injections; every two hours he takes a tonic. At the end of the course, Keeley Drs. Robert Estill Maupin, Bert Trippeer and Andrew Jackson McGee look him over, ask him if he still feels the "irresistible craving of nerve cells for alcohol." Usually he says no. How many of the 400,000 Keeley graduates have stayed cured, Director Oughton does not know, for he has no means of checking up. Although most physicians now believe that drunkards are neurotics and cannot be cured by injections, Keeley stoutly boasts that it has cured 17,000 drunken doctors since it first opened its doors.