"The arguments in favour of the substitution of something better than the short sentence prison treatment of inebriates hold good, whether the individual be reformable or not. The routine of a prison is no more suited to the needs of the habitual drunkard than it is suited to the treatment of any other form of mental unsoundness. The inebriate requires careful medical attention, regular bathing, physical exercise and drill, with a view to the recovery of physical, as a preliminary to recovery of mental health. His condition demands harder, more continuous and healthy work than is possible in the confines of a cell, or even within the restricted area of prison walls. Either in the form of education, work or play, he wants occupation of some sort throughout the day, in company with his fellows, under supervision only just sufficiently strict to prevent its misuse. Discipline is essential, but it should be the discipline of army barracks, or a ship; not the necessarily hard routine of a prison. Punishment, as such, must be kept in the background, and, so far as is possible, encouragement for good conduct, and reward for good work, should replace the fear of the results of bad conduct and idleness. But, above all, he requires medical treatment for his disordered mental state applied as early as possible after the condition is recognised. The nearer an Inebriate Reformatory resembles a mental hospital in all its arrangements, the better will be its suitability for the work it has to do, and the more the mental aspect of inebriety is kept in the foreground, the more satisfactory will be the results of treatment and control." It is true that the views expressed by Dr. Branthwaite seem to indicate as a rule the dependence of habitual inebriety on pre-existent "mental defect", and will not, as such, be accepted by general authority; and it is well known that a strong tendency to drink to intoxication exists in very many persons and families who show no other signs of deficient intelligence or loss of self-control. But the experience of many other observers who have dealt with inebriates committed by the courts to reformatories under the Act undoubtedly corroborates Dr. Branthwaite's opinion that notably large numbers of such inebriates have been markedly defective in mind from even their earliest years.