Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-08-04
The Seductive Chloral.

The Seductive Choral.
Everybody Is familiar with the abuse
81 opium in its various forms, from the
fashionable victim who is a slave to the
hypodermic needle, to the degraded out
cast seeking forgetfulness in the Chinese
opium .sjoint." OF hasheesh or Indian
hemp, little is heard, the victims of this
drug being comparatively few in this
country, though its use is common
enough in India and the East generally.
But there is another drug for some time
after its discovery, some fifteen years
ago, considered comparatively harm
less, and which is just beginning to re-
ceive the attention its baleful effects
merit. This is hydrate of choral. A
well-known physician of New York
City, in speaking on this subject, said:
"Chloral hydrate stands first in the
list of hypnotics, and to overcome pure
and simple sleeplcssness is without a
rival. When it first came into use much
was expected which experience has
failed to verify. 1t is not to any extent
an anodyne; it is simply the best hyp-
motto known, and the most deadly. The
opium habit is easily acquired; indeed,
| to some temperaments its cautious me-
dicinal use is perilous, from the readi-
ness with which the drug is resorted to
in every trifing illness and the fatal
habit formed. But it needs no bitter
season of pain and suffering to become
habituated to the use of choral. So
softly, so gently, SO gradually does its
subtle, fatal chain bind its victim that
he only realizes its power when too late
to break the bonds which bind him.
Chloral is resorted to for an ordinary
attack of insomnia, and perhaps small
doses are taken for a few days, the re-
suit being a sound, refreshing sleep
with none of the evil results
common to other narcotics. The
period of sleeplessness past, which may
be the result of overwork, business
inxiety, or nervous p~rostration, the
drug is abandoned and all goes we'll for
= time. Sooner or later sleeplessness
Fms, choral is resorted to, kept up
for a longer time and taken in larger
doses. 1t is again abandoned for q
longer time. only to resume its sway,
and so slowly and surely the habit is
formed that renders sleep impossible
without choral, which, like all narcot-
les, must be increased in quantity as the
system becomes Infatuated to its poi
sonous effects. The larger class of vie
Tins of the choral habit are men who
lead sedentary lives and who from
temperament and the nature of their
work are peculiarly liable to suffer from
sleeplessness. One of the most notable
examples of the baneful effects of the
chloral habit was Dante Gabriel Rosetti,
who, during the latter years of his life,
was accustomed to take enormous doses,
reaching a total of nearly $50 grains
daily. For many years he took choral
regularly, at first in small quantities,
but gradually increased the dose until
his power OF resistance was gone. His
life was darkened by a power he fought
against in vain. His latter days were
spent in solitude. He became a recluse
and a hypochondriac, filled with
unfounded suspicious against his best
friends and admirers. DR.. Maudsley,
the great English a%lienist, stigmatized
choral as "crystalized HE'LL" and con-
dennis its use, even in disease, except
to tide over some pressing emergency,
and there is certainly ar increasing
reluctance OF the part of physicians
to prescribe choral except in excep-
tional cases. Unlike opium, there are,
as a rule, no unpleasant effects, no
reaction following the use of choral.
It simply produces perfect sleep, or the
best possible imitation of dreamless
rest, with no headache or sickness as a
reminder that the slumber has been
purchased and the debt must be paid
for. It is paid later on, and the interest
demanded is health, hope, and often
life ITSELF"