Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1885-01-15
A TERRIBLE HABIT.
The Confession Of a Drinker of
Hydrate Of Choral
An Insiduous Drug More Fearful and More
Injurious In Its Effects Than
Opium-The Horrors of
Chloral Mania.

Alter an apparent forgetulneSs of the
once famous anRsthetic hydrate of
choral, recent fatal cases seem to
have awakened public interest in this
effective drug. I need not describe the
dangerous drug further than to say it is
a salt of burning pungent taste, having
3 great affinity for water; its basis is
chloroform, into which it is supposed
to be changed into the blood. In small
doses it is stimulant and antispasmodic,
in larger narcotic, while an overdose
produces death as simultaneously as a
flash of lightning. Like opium, the
dose must be constantly increased to
keep up the same effects. The stimula-
ton, however, is not like that caused by
opium or alcohol: it is not exhilaratine.
and does not incite to action either
mentally or bodily. But the subject of
the influence rises for a time above all
his cares or sorrows or fatigue, and
seems to look on life through the me-
dunn of rose-tinted glass But while
care and sorrow are forgotten and a
strange, dreamy sense OF perfect ease,
comfort and happiness takes their
place, all affection and love are likewise
for nothing save his own sense of COM
fort. In this state the confirmed choral
taker would stand by the death-bed of
his nearest and dearest passive spec
tator, If not actually smiling. and for
the same reason he would stand quietly
on the scaffold until executed. If the
same dose is repeated without the chlor-
allst lying down speech becomes indis-
tinct, the eyelids drop. and the gait in
walking Is affected just as in drunken
ness from alcohol. The chloralist
drunk in the first degree. is by no
means an unpleasant companion. A
stranger could mark nothing unusual
about him; he is genial, and although
rather languid and by no means
bright in conversation, he is
at all events a good listener. and is cas-
ily pleased. although his smiles often
partake OF the historical order. and,
too. he is at times easily aroused into
an outbreak of furious passion. which
dies away just as suddenly as it came.
leaving no trace behind. But, of
course. every one will not be affected
precisely alike. as much depends on
the idiosyncrasy or innate p eculiarities
of the chloralist. In my own early
stage of choral taking L used to take a
a tourney by rail-. The effect was rath-
er remarkable. Ali sense of bodily ia
tigue and even of unpleasant motion
was banished. i seemed lifted out of
myself-a spirit travelling by rail-and
the ever-varying scenery went gliding
past me like an enchanted diorama-
The difference in the effects of choral
and opium under the same circum-
stances would be this: Opium is moral
and imaginative, and paints things as
they really do not exist-throws an
artificial halo around them. as it were;
choral merely increases the power of i
ENJOYING the real. The picture on the |
brain of the chloralist is, so to speak, |
Photographic compared to that ON the |
brain of the opium-eater, which might |
be called phantasmagoricai. II know |
from experience" said a neighbor to |
me the other evening, .'the work that !:
choral does For many months, every |
night on my return from business, I /
found my poor wife drunk and nv |
dear children, who used to be so merry, |
silent and unhappy. But there was no
smell of intoxicating liquor in the room,
or even about her breath. and all my
efforts to unravel the dreadful mystery /
were unayaiiing. But one evening
after tea she dropped from her chair
while trying to speak to me-dropped
ike q log on the floor. and /
carried her to bed. Her face was
red and swollen. her lips blue; her
arms and legs were marble cold, even
hard: she had no pulse at the wrist,
but breathed as quietly as an infant
I sat beside her all that long night.
Towards morning the sleep was broken
hy means and deep catching signs, and
when she at length awoke it wasdread-
f.,l even to look upon her sufferings and
AGONY. From the doctors lips 1 first
beard the name of choral. She is now
: nervous imbecile, and must. I fear,
som succumb TO her infirmities''
Ycx choral is set moving in society,
and thousands annually fall beneath its Il
heels Let any reader of the Eagle
~ .ny wholesale chemist, and he viii |.
- toli that tons on tons of this danger
cns drug are annually imported from
Eermany and other parts) which are
,,ot prescribed by medical men. but
eslen as stimulanfs by the people them
s.res Hydrate of choral in every
=, .ne-unless administered by the
s.na of 3 skilful practitioner-is an
::-s;dious and fatal poison. Il is more
es-.,ntinr than alcohol. more insinuat- !,
- fhan opium. and more terrible in
ln$ N IL