Leslie Enraught Keeley (June 10, 1836 – February 21, 1900) was an American physician, originator of the Keeley Cure.

Biography

He was born in

Potsdam, New York Potsdam is a Administrative divisions of New York#Town, town in St. Lawrence County, New York, United States. The town population was 14,901 at the 2020 census. When the State University of New York at Potsdam and Clarkson University are in sess ...

, on June 10, 1836. Keeley graduated at the

Rush Medical College Rush Medical College is the medical school of Rush University, a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Established in 1837, it is affiliated with Rush University Medical Center, and John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County. ...

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

, in 1863, and later entered the Union Army as a

surgeon In medicine, a surgeon is a medical doctor who performs surgery. Even though there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon is a licensed physician and received the same medical training as physicians before spec ...

. At the end of the war he moved to

Dwight, Illinois Dwight is a village (Illinois), village located mainly in Livingston County, Illinois, with a small portion in Grundy County, Illinois, Grundy County. The population was 4,032 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Dwight contains an orig ...

, where he began his private medical practice. There, in 1880, he opened a

sanatorium A sanatorium (from Latin '' sānāre'' 'to heal'), also sanitarium or sanitorium, is a historic name for a specialised hospital for the treatment of specific diseases, related ailments, and convalescence. Sanatoriums are often in a health ...

for persons addicted to the immoderate use of

alcohol Alcohol may refer to: Common uses * Alcohol (chemistry), a class of compounds * Ethanol, one of several alcohols, commonly known as alcohol in everyday life ** Alcohol (drug), intoxicant found in alcoholic beverages ** Alcoholic beverage, an alco ...

and

opium Opium (also known as poppy tears, or Lachryma papaveris) is the dried latex obtained from the seed Capsule (fruit), capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid mor ...

. He asserted that "Alcoholism is a disease and I can cure it." His treatment, referred to as "Double Chloride of Gold", centered on a secret preparation that he said contained bichloride of gold. However, chemical analysis revealed that the proprietary tonic contained 27.55% alcohol plus

ammonium chloride Ammonium chloride is an inorganic chemical compound with the chemical formula , also written as . It is an ammonium salt of hydrogen chloride. It consists of ammonium cations and chloride anions . It is a white crystalline salt (chemistry), sal ...

aloin Aloin, also known as barbaloin, is a bitter, yellow-brown colored compound noted in the exudate of at least 68 ''Aloe'' species at levels from 0.1 to 6.6% of leaf dry weight (making between 3% and 35% of the total exudate), and in another 17 spec ...

and tincture of

cinchona ''Cinchona'' (pronounced or ) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Rubiaceae containing at least 23 species of trees and shrubs. All are native to the Tropical Andes, tropical Andean forests of western South America. A few species are ...

but no gold. His hypodermic injections contained sulfate of

strychnine Strychnine (, , American English, US chiefly ) is a highly toxicity, toxic, colorless, bitter, crystalline alkaloid used as a pesticide, particularly for killing small vertebrates such as birds and rodents. Strychnine, when inhaled, swallowed, ...

atropine Atropine is a tropane alkaloid and anticholinergic medication used to treat certain types of nerve agent and pesticide poisonings as well as some types of slow heart rate, and to decrease saliva production during surgery. It is typically give ...

and boracic acid. In 1890, Keeley began selling franchises and by 1893 there were 92

Keeley Institute The Keeley Institute, known for its Keeley Cure or Gold Cure, was a commercial medical operation that offered treatment to alcoholics from 1879 to 1965. Though at one time there were more than 200 branches in the United States and Europe, the or ...

s in the US, Canada, and Mexico and that number grew to over 200 and expanded to Europe. In 1939, ''Time'' magazine reported that "Unvarying is the traditional Keeley routine. An incoming inebriate pays $160, plus room and board, must stay for 31 days. His weekly whiskey ration is gradually tapered off: eight ounces the first day, six ounces the second, four ounces the third, none from there on. Four times a day he gets gold chloride injections; every two hours he takes a tonic." At its height, the clinic in Dwight treated 700 patients per day. Keeley claimed that when his medicine was administered according to his directions, it had no injurious effects and that 95 per cent of the patients were permanently cured. If they did return to drinking, he insisted that they were cured but that they drank because they choose to do so, not because they were still addicted. However, it was later noted that a "high percentage of those "cured" had relapsed."Reznicek, Michael J. (2012). ''Blowing Smoke: Rethinking the War on Drugs Without Prohibition and Rehab''. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. p. 11. Keeley published numerous articles in the popular press in addition to pamphlets promoting his therapy, and wrote ''The Morphine Eater, or From Bondage to Freedom'' (1881) and the ''Non-Heredity of Inebriety'' (1896). He died on February 21, 1900, in

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

Legacy

The Keeley Institute in

, was the last to close, doing so in 1966. Despite his therapy being described by medical experts as an example of

quackery Quackery, often synonymous with health fraud, is the promotion of fraudulent or Ignorance, ignorant medicine, medical practices. A quack is a "fraudulent or ignorant pretender to medical skill" or "a person who pretends, professionally or public ...

, Keeley is remembered as one of the first to treat alcoholism as a medical problem. The ''Keeley cure'' is defined in the

American Illustrated Medical Dictionary ''Dorland's'' is the brand name of a family of medical reference works (including dictionaries, spellers and word books, and spell-check software) in various media spanning printed books, CD-ROMs, and online content. The flagship products are ''Do ...

in the 1938 edition as "a proprietary method of treatment for the alcohol and opium habits by means of gold chloride." Keeley was widely cited as a quack. A 1908 article in the ''Illinois Medical Journal'' stated that "Leslie Keeley was a common, ordinary quack with a useless remedy which made good by advertising and catching suckers."The Illinois Medical Journal, Volume 14. Illinois State Medical Society. p. 14

Publications

''Opium: Its Use, Abuse and Cure''
(1892)
''The Keeley Treatment''
(1892)
''The Non-Heredity Of Inebriety''
(1896)

References

Sources

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Keeley, Leslie 1836 births 1900 deaths Physicians from Illinois American science writers Alcohol abuse counselors People from Potsdam, New York People from Dwight, Illinois People of Illinois in the American Civil War Rush Medical College alumni Union army surgeons Writers from Illinois Writers from New York (state)