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DRCNet Library | Schaffer Library | Historical Research
The New York Times October 7, 1909
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DRUG HABIT CURABLE, SAYS DR. LAMBERT
The announcement made by Dr. Alexander Lambert of 36 East Thirtyfirst
Street, visiting physician at Bellevue Hospital and Professor of Clinical Medicine at the
Cornell Medical College, that he has at last discovered a speedy cure for the drug habit
and alcoholism has aroused much public interest. Men of his profession are particularly
interested.
The fact that Dr. Lambert is a physician of high repute and a recognized authority in the
matter of specifics lends credence to his contention that the most confirmed drug fiends
are not beyond cure.
"The obliteration of the craving for narcotics is not a matter of months or
weeks," says Dr. Lambert, "but is accomplished in less than five days. The
result is often so dramatic that one hesitates to believe it possible."
The physician says he obtained the specific about five years ago from Charles B. Towns of
119 West Eightyfirst Street, who spent some years in China studying opium cases among
the hospitals there. Since that time he has been experimenting with it extensively in his
practice at Bellevue. Here is the specific;
The cure, according to Dr. Lambert, can be effected with a minimum of suffering, and no
matter how long the patient has been addicted to the habit, or to what quantities he has
been accustomed to take drugs, he will be placed in the same attitude toward them as
before he fell into the habit. His health will in no way be impaired by the treatment or
the deprivation of the drug; on the contrary, a physiological change comes about whereby,
all desire being eliminated, selfconfidence is restored to the patient, and his system
adjusted to do without it.
Dr. Lambert says, however, that he has no intention to call the specific "an
infallible cure," he says:
"This treatment is not a cureall for disease, a rehabilitator of all the disturbed
functions of the body."
As to the method of treatment, as Dr. Lambert explains it, after employing it in Bellevue
in the cases of twentyeight patients, all of whom he cured, it begins in the usual way
by getting the patient into proper physical condition. Then, in cases of cocaine or
morphine, the specific is administered in certain proportions and quantities, depending
largely on the individual, every hour throughout the treatment . But after every six hours
the specific is increased until the quantity is doubled.
One way in which the treatment differs from all others is that while the specific is
being administered, the drug of which the patient is a victim is still taken. For this
reason practically all suffering is absent. Regarding this Dr. Lambert says:
"Give with the first dose of the specific from onehalf to twothirds of the usual
total daily dose of the opium, morphine or cocaine which the patient is taking at the time
of his treatment. Divide the amount of the narcotic in three doses and give them at
halfhour intervals by mouth or by hypodermic, as the patient is accustomed to take
it."
Of alcoholism Dr. Lambert says:
"The same specific is used in the same dose, but it does not have to be continued for
so long a time although there may be exceptions. Much closer observation is necessary in
treating the alcoholic in regard to the intoxication of belladonna."
Dr. Lambert's record of his drug patients in Bellevue shows that treatment and results
vary little with age or with the period of addiction to the habit, or quantity of the drug
taken.
One case is that of a woman 59 years old, addicted for twenty years to the morphine habit.
She had brought her dose to an excessive point daily, having acquired the habit to obtain
relief from pain. She was in a feeble and nervous condition when admitted to the hospital.
In thirteen days, after fortysix hours of specific treatment, she was discharged in good
condition. No supplementary treatment was needed.
Dr. Lambert has been exPresident Roosevelt's private physician for many years.
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