Keeley Institute - History

History

In 1879 Dr. Leslie Keeley announced the result of a collaboration with John R. Oughton, an Irish chemist, which was heralded as a "major discovery" by Keeley. The discovery, a new treatment for alcoholism, 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 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)

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, 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. The New York Times also featured coverage on the Keeley Institute as early as 1891, and in 1893 a Brooklyn 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 physicians believed that "drunkards are neurotics and cannot be cured by injections." Keeley Institute director Oughton, Jr. said in a 1939 Time 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, is still on the grounds, complete with a time capsule. The Keeley Institute continued to operate until it definitively shut down in 1965.