The daily gazette., 1876-11-09
Opium Eating.
RAPID INCREASE OF THE DEADLY HABIT
IN A NEW ENGLAND TOWN.

hAfiD lNthEASE THE DEADL1 HABIT
IN A NEW ENGLAND TOWN.
Providence Journal.
Most people know that the opium ha-
bit is increasing Throughout the country,
but few are aware of its alarming growth
in New England. In Providence the city
druggists report more or less rapid in
crease in the number of their opium Gus
TONERS, and physicians find that female
patients cannot be affected by less than
four times an ordinary dose of morphine.
Many acquire the opium habit during ill
ness, when it is taken to relieve pain;
others, during great mental despondency;
Others, from an inherited craving for it,
and others, still, while trying to leave off
drinking liquor. Its use is not charac-
teristic of any one class. The contracted
pupil of the eye, the sallow. countenance
the placid expression, the dreamy, dis
tant look, which denote the opium eater,
are found inthe workshop and the factory
as well as in the Ecountingroom or the
boudoir.
Wealthy opium eaters buy the drug
through trusted agent, whose tongue is
sealed by his pay; the poor usually buy
theirs covert1y in the evening, usually
saying that it is for some one else. Some
try to conceal their purchase of the drug
by buying in different stores, until almost
the whole city has been gone over, others
appear as regularly at the same place
Saturday evening as the evening comes.
The wish to conceal the habit is universal
and it is never taken as liquors are drunk
in a crowd and with merrymaking. A
grain Of opium, or an eight as much of
morphine, is dose for beginner, but
the desire and ability to take it grow so
rapidly that five and even ten grains of
morphine are taken in q day, perhaps in
three doses. An opium eater in Provi-
dence q few months ago ate one hundred
| and twenty five grains of opium in twenty
| four hours and woman drinks coffee
| cup full of laudanum without HARM
There are large number of men whose
| weekly purchase of opium indicates that
| they use about twenty five grains q
| day.
a novel method of taking opium is by
the use of the hypodermic syringe-atiny
instrument with needle point, which is
stuck through the skin, and through
| which the liquids conveyed directly into
the blood. The effect when administer.
ed in this way is much more immediate
than when taken in the usual way, as a
powder or in little pellets. Physicians
addicted to the habit land there Is sur
prising number of these) usually adopt
the hypodermic method, and one doctor
is known whose body is in spots SCARED
| like the traces of small pox from the
marks of his morphine syringe. The high
cost is one hindrance to its use. Really
poor people cannot afford to extensively
| use an article which costs So 80 to SIS so
| an ounce. Nevertheless, with the habit
| once formed msn or woman will dc
anything to get opium that the most
inveterate drunkard would do to get
/ rum.
| Opium-eating is, if possible, more Sc.
ductive than liquor drinking, and the
confirmed opium eater can have scarcely
hope of escape from its power. The
victim is in misery wheneverhe is not un
der the influence of the drug. 1t is sale
that there is one opium eater in Provi
dence who has fully counted the cost. HI
began to eat opium when about thirty
five years old, and finding, few years
later, the habit firmly fastened upon him
determined that he could not live, at the
longest more than thirty years. He was
then taking half Il grain Il day, He fig
ured out the amount that he would re-
quire in the thirty years, allowing an in
crease of a quarter of grain year. He
then made a deposit of money sufficient
to supply himself with his regular allow.
ance during all those years, and now goes
about continually under its influence
viewing life and the world in which he
moves us if he saw them from the large
| end of an opera glass.