from a
1902 advertisement
THE KEELEY TREATMENT
FOR ALCOHOL AND DRUG INEBRIETYCan Inebriety be cured? Here are
some facts from prominent men regarding the Keeley Cure for the
Drink and Drug Habit.
"It really cures. It does what it professes to do." Such is the
emphatic testimony of Mr. Fardley Wilmot, the well known secretary
of the Church of England Temperence Society, who for some ten
years has had the Keeley method under close observation in this
country. He adds: "I do not wish to use high-flown language, but
really and truly I look upon the Keeley cure as a modern miracle."
And then he tells how case after case that had been considered
hopeless, all the other known forms of treatment having been
tried, has yielded speedily to the Keeley cure, the patients
returning to their work full of vigour and happy in the
restoration of all that makes life worth living.
He has sent bad cases which his Society were unable to deal
with. These cases numbered in all forty, and Mr. Wilmot says that
out of these only four have lapsed, while the remaining thirty-six
recovered and have been total abstainers ever since.
[more]
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Leslie E. Keeley
Keeley Institute
Leslie E. Keeley, 1834-1900, served as a surgeon in the Union Army
during the Civil War following his medical education at Rush Medical
College in Chicago (1864). In 1866, he settled in Dwight, Illinois as a
surgeon for the Chicago and Alton Railroad. Keeley's interest in
alcoholism led to the opening his first clinic, the Keeley Institute, in
Dwight, 1879. He claimed to have discovered a specific remedy for
alcohol and drug addictions and began treating patients with his "Double
Chloride of Gold Cure," the ingredients of which included gold salts
with other compounds.
By 1890, the success of the Institute encouraged Dr. Keeley to
establish franchised branches. By 1893, there were 92 Keeley Institutes
in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The first Leslie E. Keeley
Institute of the Maritime Provinces was incorporated in Fredericton, New
Brunswick on October 2, 1894. Some of the Directors of the Fredericton
branch included Archibald Fitz Randolph, Fredericton's leading wholesale
merchant and founder of the People's Bank of New Brunswick; George
Frederick Gregory, Mayor of Fredericton for five years; John James
Fraser, New Brunswick's Lieutenant Governor; Charles Nelson Skinner, Q.C.,
of Saint John, who served as a member of both the provincial and federal
legislatures, and as a probate Judge of Saint John; and Willard Kitchen,
also a Mayor of Fredericton, who operated the largest furniture emporium
in the city.
Funding for the Keeley Institute in Fredericton came from the board
of directors, physicians, and other potential backers who believed in
Keeley's remedies. The money that was received went towards the purchase
of "the sole right to use the Dr. Leslie E. Keeley remedies within the
provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island" from
the Dwight company and from George Parent of Montreal, owner of the
Canadian rights, for $14,000. The Board of Directors of the Keeley
Institute in Fredericton purchased the Elmcroft property located on the
Saint John River, just outside the city, to house their treatment
center.
The Board of Directors attempted to take an active role in the
Institute's management. However, mismanagement and immorality,
withholding payments to the Dwight company and Parent, and the
disappearance of the house physician made this impossible. As a result,
the Keeley Institute in Fredericton closed its doors in March 1896. The
North American Keeley movement outlived the Fredericton collapse by a
few years, but other institutes were shut down due to an increase in
opposition of the medical profession. By 1900, the majority of the
Keeley Institutes were shut down after the death of Leslie E. Keeley.
The last institute to close its doors was in Dwight, Illinois in 1966.
Source: Warsh, Cheryl Krasnick. "Adventures in Maritime Quackery: The
Leslie E. Keeley Gold Cure Institute of Fredericton, N.B." Acadiensis,
Vol. XVII, No. 2, Spring 1988.
Scope and Content: This fonds contains minutes of the Board of
Directors
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