In setting about the business of treating an alcoholic, the first step is to realize that he is in an abnormal mental state. To moralize or to appeal in the name of sentiment to a warped and twisted mind is, I believe, sheer waste of time. To the man who has lost control, it must be first restored before he can be put to thinking. You cannot expect the distorted alcoholic brain to be honest with you or with itself. I cannot emphasize too strongly the harm that may come out of simply depriving the chronic alcoholic of his stimulant. I know that there are many relatives and friends and even physicians who, out of pure desperation, feel that they have accomplished much when they are able to put a man where he is unable to get his drink, irrespective of the amount which he has been accustomed to take. I consider the chronic alcoholic one of the most important cases in medicine to deal with successfully. Strange as it may seem to the layman,--and it is just as strange to the physician,--to such a case there is absolutely no other form of artificial stimulants that will take the place of alcohol, and when a patient is deprived of his accustomed stimulant, within twenty-four hours he begins to drift into delirium tremens, which means that the patient is a very sick man, and unless he is properly treated, will, if he lives through the active period of delirium, drift into a "wet brain," or, in other words, alcoholic insanity; and even if the patient survives the latter illness, a large percentage of such cases prove in the end to be hopelessly insane, and about eighty per cent. of the delirium tremens cases that do not get proper medical help die. It is a very serious matter dealing with the chronic alcoholic. Something definite must be done for such a case; deprivation is impossible; simple reduction is sometimes a failure; nothing short of definite medical, hospital work will unpoison this sick man and avoid the complications of delirium, "wet brain," or possible hopeless insanity. The second step is to give the patient that definite medical treatment which will correct his physical condition. Once this change has been effected, you have a man whose system is no longer crying out for liquor, with every nerve a-quiver for it, every tissue thirsting for it. There have been reforms from alcoholism which were not preceded by this physiological change, but they have been rare. The physiological metamorphosis may be accomplished from without, by means of treatment, without assistance from the patient other than mere acquiescence. The mental change can be assisted from without; it cannot be accomplished or maintained by any one except the patient. Despite himself a man may be successfully treated for other ailments, but not for alcoholism. By an intelligent subsequent attitude friends or physicians may help to restore self-confidence, but that is all they can do.