The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1874-10-10
Alcohol Yersps Opium.

The Chicago Tribune presents the following
very interesting and suggestive statement on a
subject just now much discussed
Until 1910 our importation of opium did not
exceed the proper medicinal demand for the drug.
We used in that year about "a 900 pounds Of it.
In 1870 We imported l54, 81 pounds in 1872,
over $4,000. The Chinese demand tor opium
prepared for smoking accounts for about one
eighth Of this. Three-eighths are absorbed in pre-
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. which are too often reck-
lessiy written, as we shall show hereafter. This
leaves fifty per cent, or about Us 600 pounds OF
poison, unaccounted for. The books of wholesale
drug houses IN the East show heavy sales OF opium
TO the country dealers. The habit of opium eat
ing seems to prevail chiefly among women. The
fact may explain the great per centage of farmers
wives in lunatic asylums. The author OF b" The
Opium Habit - estimates that there are 80 900 or
100 600 habitual opium eaters in the country.
There are somewhat precise returns, however,
only from the State of OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
The apothecaries in the smaller towns of the
Commonwealth reports an alarming state of things.
We subioin a few notes furnished by different
druggists to the Board of Health.
Those addicted TO opium are all females.
Several nervous women take opium here.
1 think the use of opium has slightly increased,
mostly among females.
There are probably half a dozen opium eaters
here, all females but one.
One opium eater in town-a woman.
The use of opium has greatly increased, esPeci-
ally among females.
The causes Of this alarming habit Of ~selEpois-
Oning are several. The taste is often implanted
in early infancy by the use of the drugged syrups
which foolish mothers give to their restless babies.
The Massachusetts, Board of Health indorses the
author of - Opium and the Opium Appetite . in
his statement that " the basis of what is known
as Winslow's Soothing Syrup is morphia a recent
analysis of this medicine gave one grain Of the
alkaloid TO an ounce of the syrup; the dose for an
infant, as directed, being four or five times that
rc,,o11r rarar1a1 nc co 20 - AnaFhar aaSn - Tho
rashness of physicians in prescribing the drug.
Out Of fifty apOthecaries, fourteen mention this
as q great reason of the growth of the habit.
The opiate treatment Of neuralgia is very COM
mon and very mischieyous. This disease, by the
way, first led DeQuincey to use the deadly drug.
The third great cause is the denial of the natural
craving for alcohol. Man, baked of one stimu-
liant, takes another. 1T is a significant fact
that both in England and in this country the
total abstinence movement was almost lmmedi-
ately followed by an increased consumption of
opium" The English importation doubled within
FIVE years of the outbreak of the movement.
When teetotalism gained ground in America, our
importation-although the price Of opium had
just increased so per cent.-rose in the proper
ton of 3.5 to /. Stille, in his Therapeutics
and Materia Medical" says; 1.-The habit of
.opium-chewing has become very prevalent in the
British Islands, especially since the use of alco-
hohc drinks has been to so great an extent
Abandoned Morehouse, in his " History of
Inebriating Liquors. declares that the Mahom-
metans began to use opium when wine was for
hidden them. In Turkey, increased demand for
wine, of late years, has been accompanied by
diminished demand for opium. In hot countries,
opium and similar substances are very generally
used in place of alcoholic stimulants. These
instances establish a probability that opium and
alcohol conflict with each other. The use of one
is apt to involve the disuse of the other. A num-
Der of Massachusetts, apothecaries take this view.
One Boston druggist says &" Have but one GUS
toner, and that a noted temperance lecturer
The prevalence of the habit among women is
probably explained by the unhappiness of most of
them, the mental stagnation, the liability to
nervous depression, and, in the country, the Sc
clusion and the grinding physical work. More
over, woman are excluded by public opinion from
the beer hall and the dram shop, and they are
very subservient to that opinion. Their stimulants
must be secret. Opium, in its various forms of
laudanum, paregoric, and sulphate of morphIa,
can be taken readily in private and without in
corruption of duty.
The relation between alcohol and opium is of
special Importance. If our prohibitory laws are
not only bringing with them the usual evils of
sumptuary legislation, but are driving thousands
of people to the use of a poison that is far worse
than alcohol, We need to know it. Rash legisla-
ton may fatally affect morals. The English taste
for fiery liquors-a taste that we have inherited
attributed BY many thinkers to the heavy
5ariff imposed upon French light wines in 1908.
This practically shut the latter out of the market,
md drove the English to the use of the heavy
wines of Portugal. The taste once gained grew
lpon them.