St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-06-14
FASHIONABLE POISONING.
Morphine and Ether i'm the Partisan
Club-ROOm and Opera-BOx.

Morphine and Ether i'm the Partisan
Club-ROOm and Opera-BOx.
From LIE Progress Medical.
Would you believe that some persons take
pleasure in poisoning themselves simply be-
cause their neighbors do it? This is, how
ever, fact recently affirmed and proved by
DR.. Regnard at the Sorbonne. The large
audience of the Association Scientifque
seemed to be completely dismayed at his
revelations. Upon a large table in the
amphitheater were disposed series of the
most brilliant-looking caskets plated with
laid with pearl. You would think, to see
them, that you had grand display of
jewelry laid out before you. Such is not, how
ever, the case. What you see is only an
admirable collection of syringes. Some of
them are incloSed in elegant cigaret cases,
others are contained in charming little
reticules, or in smelling-salts TASKS. The
cases serve to mask the instrument and the
little vial which goes with it.
And wherefore these instruments? M.
Regnard tells US that these luxurious i'm
plementS are designed for the pleasure-lov-
ing people of Paris, who can no longer find
in the theater, OF in gambling, horse-racing
and other designations, the emotional eX-
elements which they seek for so eagerly.
These are the persons who purchase these
marvellous casketS, which will at least lend
them temporary elasticity, although they
can hardly rejuvenate the used-up brain.
The walls contain solution of morphine,
and the syringes are used to inject it be-
meath the skin. Do you wish to know how
person becomes a morphiomanic in the
world of fashion? He tells his friend that
he has tired of his habitual pleasures; that
the greatest of them have lost their power
to please. The friend replies that he had
been in a similar condition. He had found
consolation, however, in morphine; the drug
had restored his tone and brilliancy. No
more than this is necessary to make NOR
phiomaniac out of a blase man or nervous
woman. But as it is necessary to dissimu-
late and preserve a sentiment of careless
ease in the pursuance of the dread habit,
one of the luxurious baskets with it's golden
syringe is purchased. When, therefore,
the ordinary syringe used for the purpose
may be had for $1.15, the fashionable
syringes will sometimes fetch as high as $7O.
They are often given as New Years
presents. 1t is with these instruments,
which they always carry with them, that
gentlemen at their clubs or ladies in their
opera boxes revive the almost extinguished
sensations and sentiments of the past.
Instead of morphine injections some per-
sons inhale ether. People become etherO-
maniacs for the same reasons that they be-
come morphiomanicS. 1t is a vogue, a fan
tasy, which provOkes these abominable in
toXications. There are also morphiomani-
acs who habituate themselves by degrees to
the poison to diminish the violent pains of
gastralgia, or facial neuralgia; and we have
whole category of persons who poison
themselves simply as matter of caprice.
Dr.. Regnard divides morphiomaniacs into
two groups-those who poison themselves
honestly and those who do so because it is
the fashion. The deplorable facility with
which it is possible to procure solutions of
morphine favors the development of this
new malady among the idle and degener-
ated beings of high society. Dr.. Regnard
abused these homeopathic persons in the
wittiest way. Nevertheless, I recognized
several morphiomaniacs in the audience,
who applauded the lecturer in the heartiest
manner.