I do not, of course, mean to offer the above comparison as either perfect in itself, or as sufficient to establish the claim that addiction is a true disease. The fact that it is a disease has impressed itself on all competent observers of a sufficient number of cases, and must be accepted. Yet it is astonishing to find that many educated physicians do not know this, while an even larger number, though readily admitting that addiction is a disease, nevertheless show, both by their manner of discussing the subject and by their attitude towards addicts seeking their advice, that this is little more than a verbal concession on their part. If, however, it be argued that the contention as to addiction being a disease is vitiated by the fact that an occasional addict stops taking his drug by “will power,” that is, without taking treatment, we can point to an even larger proportion of mild cases of malarial fever in which spontaneous cure has come about. But this does not prove that the one, any more than the other, is not a disease. Indeed, there could be no stronger argument in favor of the fact that addiction is an actual disease than the very phenomena presented by the occasional addict who stops taking the drug by “will power.” Neither medical writers nor literary geniuses, whether themselves addicts or mere observers, have yet succeeded in presenting a true picture of the tortures which this involves. There could be no greater error than to regard cure as dating from the time the last dose was taken. When, in these cases, cure comes at all, it is only after weeks, or months, of horrible existence, during which kind nature brings about a more or less complete restoration of body and mind not alone from the disease of addiction, but also from the profound shock of unskilled or unwise withdrawal. Will power has enabled the addict to abstain from taking the drug, while nature cured the disease. There has been no time during all the years of my addiction that I have not earnestly longed to be free from its clutches. This is sufficiently proved by the many efforts which I have made to find a cure, each time at great personal sacrifice and expense, each time only to have my hopes shattered, after untold suffering and fresh disillusionment. But a real cure I have thus far been unable to find. I have tried everything that seemed to offer a chance: gradual reduction, self-conducted and at institutions, the Keeley cure several times, and since then all of the vaunted cures, as each appeared in turn, advocated by men of high standing in the medical profession. Concerning this last class, I have each time hoped that such men could not be totally in error as to the practical results of their methods, notwithstanding what has seemed to me the most bizarre pathology on which they have claimed these methods to be based.