| The world-famous Keeley Institute of Dwight Illinois | | | | Keeley Cure and Institute with the general public. The |
| healthcare was a commercial medical facility which | | | | treatment offered by the Keeley Institute has been |
| offered its secret "Keeley Cure" treatment for | | | | called pioneering, and also humane. The Institute was |
| alcoholics. It operated from 1879 through 1965, and | | | | designed to be an open, homelike place with an |
| spawned hundreds of branches across the U.S. and | | | | informal environment. Initially the patients boarded at |
| Europe. The institute was founded by Leslie Keeley | | | | nearby hotels or private homes; and later on they |
| together with John R. Oughton, a chemist from Ireland, | | | | stayed at the the John R. Oughton House. They were |
| in 1879. The pair made a major discovery for treating | | | | free to stroll around the Institute grounds, and also the |
| alcoholics: injections of a solution of gold chloride; and | | | | village streets. They were initially allowed as much |
| they founded the Keeley Institute and Keeley | | | | liquor as they desired. They were required to receive |
| Company to promote it. The Keeley Cure involved | | | | four daily Keeley Cure shots of gold bichloride. |
| treating alcoholism as a disease instead of a vice. | | | | Additionally, patients received individually-prescribed |
| Keeley's work was pioneering, and foreshadowed | | | | tonics to be taken at intervals of two hours daily. |
| further research which showed that the condition of | | | | Normal treatment time was four weeks until |
| alcoholism has a physiological nature. Dr. Keeley | | | | completion of the Cure. |
| amassed a large fortune from the institute and the | | | | In 1900 Keeley died in Dwight hospital and the number |
| Keeley Cure, from the third of a million patients who | | | | of patients at the Institute declined. Between 1900 and |
| received it, including 17,000 alcoholic medical doctors. | | | | 1939 only 100,000 people took the Kelley Cure. |
| The Keeley Cure's public reputation soared when the | | | | Oughton and partner Judd reorganized the company |
| Keeley Institute was given positive press coverage in | | | | after Keeley's death and kept operating the Institute. |
| the Chicago Tribune and even, in 1891, in the New York | | | | However, it diminished into oblivion over the years after |
| Times. The Keeley Institute grew from Dwight | | | | Keeley, its energetic spokesman and crusading |
| healthcare to encompass more than two hundred | | | | defender, had died. After John R. Oughton's death in |
| branches throughout America and Europe. The Keeley | | | | 1925, his son assumed control of the steadily declining |
| Cure was billed as a scientific treatment for alcoholism. | | | | Keeley Institute fortunes. Nonetheless, the Institute |
| However, Keeley's decision to keep the formula secret | | | | celebrated its 60th anniversary in 1939. On that |
| brought heavy criticism from the medical profession, | | | | occasion over ten thousand people attended the |
| who termed it quackery. By the late nineteen-thirties | | | | ceremony, and a plaque was unveiled which was |
| most of the medical community were of the opinion | | | | sculpted by Florence Gray, a local student of Lorado |
| that alcoholism was a neurosis which couldn't be cured | | | | Taft. The plaque, which bore the likenesses of Keeley |
| with injections. The rejection of the medical community, | | | | and Oughton and the later partner Judd, was |
| however, did not impair the great popularity of the | | | | dedicated together with a time capsule. |