Keeley Institute
Encyclopedia
Leslie Keeley
Leslie Keeley was an American physician, originator of the Keeley Cure.Born in St. Lawrence County, N.Y., Keeley graduated at the Rush Medical College, Chicago, in 1863, and later entered the Union Army as a surgeon. At the end of the war he moved to Dwight, Ill., where he began his private...
in Dwight, Illinois
Dwight, Illinois
Dwight is a village in located mainly in Livingston County, Illinois, with a small portion in Grundy County, Illinois. The population was 4,260 at the 2010 census. Dwight contains an original stretch of the famous U.S. Route 66, and uses a railroad station designed in 1891 by Henry Ives Cobb. It is...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. After Keeley's death the institute began a slow decline but remained in operation under John R. Oughton, and, later, his son. The Keeley Institute offered the internationally famous Keeley Cure, which drew sharp criticism from those within the mainstream medical profession. The Keeley Institute's location in Dwight, Illinois had a major influence on the development of Dwight as a village. There are only a few remaining indications in Dwight that the Keeley Institute was once a major force. The Keeley cure was wildly popular in the late 1890s. Thousands of people came to Dwight to be cured of alcoholism; thousands more sent for the mail-order oral liquid form which they took in the privacy of their homes. The Dwight, Illinois location was the original institute founded by Leslie Keeley that treated alcoholics with the infamous Keeley Cure, which was criticized by the medical profession.(Lender, and Martin) This cure, which later became known as the “gold cure”, expanded to over 200 locations in the United States and Europe.(Keeley Cure) It began to decline after Keeley’s death.(Lender, and Martin)
History
In 1879 Dr. Leslie KeeleyLeslie Keeley
Leslie Keeley was an American physician, originator of the Keeley Cure.Born in St. Lawrence County, N.Y., Keeley graduated at the Rush Medical College, Chicago, in 1863, and later entered the Union Army as a surgeon. At the end of the war he moved to Dwight, Ill., where he began his private...
announced the result of a collaboration with John R. Oughton, an Irish chemist
Chemist
A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...
, which was heralded as a "major discovery" by Keeley. The discovery, a new treatment for alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
, resulted in the founding of the Keeley Institute. The treatment was developed from a partnership with John Oughton, an irish chemist, and a merchant named Curtis Judd.("Fargo, N.D., History Exhibition") The institute attempted to treat alcoholism as a disease. Patients who were cured using this treatment were honored as "graduates" and asked to promote the cure.(Tracy) Keeley became wealthy through the popularity of the institute and its well known slogan, “Drunkenness is a disease and I can cure it.” His work foreshadowed later work that would attribute a physiological nature to alcoholism.
The Keeley Institute eventually had over 200 branches throughout the United States and Europe, and by 1900 the so-called Keeley Cure, injections of gold chloride
Gold chloride
Gold chloride can refer to:* Gold chloride , AuCl* Gold chloride , AuCl2* Gold chloride , AuCl3* Chloroauric acid, HAuCl4...
, had been administered to more than 300,000 people. The reputation of the Keeley Cure was largely enhanced by positive coverage from the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
. The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
also featured coverage on the Keeley Institute as early as 1891, and in 1893 a Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
man's drunken rabble-rousing received coverage which noted he was a Keeley Institute graduate. The Times said "it is not everyday that a man from the Keeley Institute for the cure of drunkenness comes to New-York and gets into such a predicament."
After Keeley died in 1900, the patient numbers lowered, 100,000 additional people took the cure between 1900 and 1939. Oughton and Judd took over the company following Keeley's death, and continued to operate the institute. The organization, which had always drawn some criticism, faded into national oblivion with Keeley, its primary spokesman and defender, gone. By the late 1930s most physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
s believed that "drunkards are neurotics [sic
Sic
Sic—generally inside square brackets, [sic], and occasionally parentheses, —when added just after a quote or reprinted text, indicates the passage appears exactly as in the original source...
] and cannot be cured by injections." Keeley Institute director Oughton, Jr. said in a 1939 Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine article that the treatment program had cured "17,000 drunken doctors".
When John R. Oughton died in 1925 his son took over the declining institute. In 1939 the institute celebrated its 60th anniversary. A ceremony which unveiled a commemorative plaque bearing the likenesses of Keeley, Oughton and Judd attracted 10,000 people. The plaque, designed by Florence Gray, a student of Lorado Taft
Lorado Taft
Lorado Zadoc Taft was an American sculptor, writer and educator. Taft was born in Elmwood, Illinois in 1860 and died in his home studio in Chicago in 1936.-Early years and education:...
, is still on the grounds, complete with a time capsule
Time capsule
A time capsule is an historic cache of goods or information, usually intended as a method of communication with future people and to help future archaeologists, anthropologists, or historians...
. The Keeley Institute continued to operate until it definitively shut down in 1965.
Treatment
Franchising
Franchising is the practice of using another firm's successful business model. The word 'franchise' is of anglo-French derivation - from franc- meaning free, and is used both as a noun and as a verb....
s of the Keeley Institute around the world but it is thought that many were modeled after the Dwight institute.
New patients who arrived at the Dwight institute were introduced into an open, informal environment where they were first offered as much alcohol
Alcohol
In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....
as they could imbibe. Initially, patients were boarded in nearby hotels, such as the Dwight Livingston Hotel, or the homes of private residents. Later patients stayed in the converted John R. Oughton House
John R. Oughton House
The John R. Oughton House commonly known as The Lodge or the Keeley Estate, is a Victorian mansion located in the village of Dwight, Illinois, United States. The grounds remain mostly unchanged since the house was moved from its original site in 1894 and remodeled a year later. John R...
. The institute operated out of homes and hotels using a spa like atmosphere of peace and comfort. All patients received injections of “bichlorides of gold” four times daily. There were other “secret” tonics given as well.(Tracy) The treatment lasted four weeks.(Larson pp.161-163.) The medical profession continued to criticize the method and many tried to identify the mysterious ingredients. Strychnine, alcohol, apomorphine, willow bark, ammonia, and atropine were claimed to have been identified in the injections. The injections were dissolved in red, white and blue liquids and the amounts varied. In addition, patients would receive individually prescribed tonics every two hours throughout the day. Treatments lasted for a period of four weeks.
Patients at Dwight were free to stroll the grounds of the institute as well as the streets of the village. It has been called an early therapeutic community
Therapeutic community
Therapeutic community is a term applied to a participative, group-based approach to long-term mental illness, personality disorders and drug addiction...
.
Reaction
The Keeley Institute offered a "scientific" treatment for alcoholism, something that until then was treated by various "miraculous" cures and other types of quackeryQuackery
Quackery is a derogatory term used to describe the promotion of unproven or fraudulent medical practices. Random House Dictionary describes a "quack" as a "fraudulent or ignorant pretender to medical skill" or "a person who pretends, professionally or publicly, to have skill, knowledge, or...
. The Keeley Cure became popular, with hundreds of thousands eventually receiving it. From the beginning, Keeley's decision to keep his formula a secret drew sharp criticism from his peers. The Keeley Institute's popularity with the public never translated to popularity with the medical profession. Medical professionals generally approached commercial cures, such as the Keeley Cure, with skepticism. A promotional brochure for one hospital specifically singled out the Keeley Cure in its language.
Many individuals and groups, especially those within the mainstream medical profession, attempted to analyze the Keeley Cure for its ingredients and reports varied widely as to their identity. Strychnine
Strychnine
Strychnine is a highly toxic , colorless crystalline alkaloid used as a pesticide, particularly for killing small vertebrates such as birds and rodents. Strychnine causes muscular convulsions and eventually death through asphyxia or sheer exhaustion...
, alcohol, apomorphine
Apomorphine
Apomorphine is a non-selective dopamine agonist which activates both D1-like and D2-like receptors, with some preference for the latter subtypes. It is historically a morphine decomposition product by boiling with concentrated acid, hence the -morphine suffix...
, willow bark, ammonia
Ammonia
Ammonia is a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula . It is a colourless gas with a characteristic pungent odour. Ammonia contributes significantly to the nutritional needs of terrestrial organisms by serving as a precursor to food and fertilizers. Ammonia, either directly or...
, and atropine
Atropine
Atropine is a naturally occurring tropane alkaloid extracted from deadly nightshade , Jimson weed , mandrake and other plants of the family Solanaceae. It is a secondary metabolite of these plants and serves as a drug with a wide variety of effects...
were among the many suggested chemicals.
Legacy
The Keeley Institute had a profound influence on DwightDwight, Illinois
Dwight is a village in located mainly in Livingston County, Illinois, with a small portion in Grundy County, Illinois. The population was 4,260 at the 2010 census. Dwight contains an original stretch of the famous U.S. Route 66, and uses a railroad station designed in 1891 by Henry Ives Cobb. It is...
's development as a village. As the Institute gained national and international acclaim, Dwight began to develop into a "model" village. Eight hundred passengers per week were arriving in Dwight at the height of the Keeley Institute. Other developments followed the influx of people: modern paved roads replaced older dirt roads, electric light
Electric light
Electric lights are a convenient and economic form of artificial lighting which provide increased comfort, safety and efficiency. Most electric lighting is powered by centrally-generated electric power, but lighting may also be powered by mobile or standby electric generators or battery systems...
ing was installed in place of older gas lamps and water and sewage systems were replaced and improved. New homes, businesses, and a railroad depot
Dwight (Amtrak station)
The Dwight railroad depot was built in Dwight, Illinois, United States by the Chicago and Alton Railroad in 1891 to a design by architect Henry Ives Cobb. Built in the Richardson Romanesque style of rusticated masonry, the structure has been on the National Register of Historic Places since...
were all constructed and Dwight became the "most famous village of its size in America."
There are few examples of structures associated with the Keeley Institute still extant in Dwight, and only one is open to the public. The Livingston Hotel once provided housing for hundreds of Keeley patients and a Keeley office building, known as the Keeley Building was first used by the institute in 1920, and now houses private commercial offices. The John R. Oughton House and its two outbuildings remain; the house operates as a restaurant
Restaurant
A restaurant is an establishment which prepares and serves food and drink to customers in return for money. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...
, the carriage house
Carriage house
A carriage house, also called remise or coach house, is an outbuilding which was originally built to house horse-drawn carriages and the related tack.In Great Britain the farm building was called a Cart Shed...
is a public library
Public library
A public library is a library that is accessible by the public and is generally funded from public sources and operated by civil servants. There are five fundamental characteristics shared by public libraries...
and the windmill
Windmill
A windmill is a machine which converts the energy of wind into rotational energy by means of vanes called sails or blades. Originally windmills were developed for milling grain for food production. In the course of history the windmill was adapted to many other industrial uses. An important...
has been restored and is owned by the Village of Dwight. The Keeley Institute solidified its place in American culture throughout its period of prominence as several generations of Americans joked about people, especially the rich and famous, who were "taking the Keeley Cure" or had "gone to Dwight and Dr. Keeley is remembered as the first to treat alcoholism as a medical disease rather than as a social vice.