Drunkard’s Refuge: The Lessons of the New York State Inebriate Asylum

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Description

Opened all through the Civil War in 1864, the New York State Inebriate Asylum in Binghamton was once the first medically directed addiction remedy center in the USA. In this book, John W. Crowley and William White provide a full of life account of this pioneering facility and its charismatic founder, Dr. Joseph Edward Turner. Based on Turner’s recently rediscovered papers, the story is one of plots and intrigues, charges and countercharges, criminal accusations and indictments, and the plundering of a historic institution.

Turner, who had developed an interest in alcoholism as a medical student, spent years championing the idea of a publicly funded hospital for the remedy of inebriety. His efforts to realize his vision repeatedly ran into obstacles, including strong opposition from religious and temperance groups, who refused to believe alcohol addiction a medical disorder, and a skeptical state legislature. After the asylum in any case opened, funded in part by alcohol-related tax revenues, Turner and other doctors became embroiled in a power struggle over remedy philosophy, even as patients and members of the family bristled at what they thought to be excessive rules and regulations. Within three years Turner had been forced out and the hospital had ceased to function as an institution specializing in the care of inebriates.

Crowley, a literary scholar, and White, a clinical researcher, have written this book with a broad readership in mind, including individuals working and living within the worlds of addiction remedy and recovery. At a time when the remedy of addiction is facing fresh challenges to its core ideas, clinical practices, and economic infrastructure, the authors show that the lessons of the New York State Inebriate Asylum are no less relevant to the present than to the past.

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