Roseburg review. [volume] (Roseburg, Or.) 1885-1920, 1885-03-06
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
Choral Mania.

After an apparent forgetfulness of the
once famous anasthetic hydrate of
choral, recent fatal cases seem to
have awakened public interest in this
effective drug. need not describe the
dangerous drug further than to say it is
a salt OF burning pungent taste, having
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 instantaneously as
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 exhilarating,
and does not incite to action either
mentally or bodily. But the subject of
the influence rises for 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
banished. He is apathetic and cares
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-
alist 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 good listener, and is cas-
lily pleased, although his smiles often
partake of the hysterical 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 peculiarities
of the chloralist. In my own early
stage of choral taking used to take a
| small pick-me-up dose when starting on
| journey by rail. The effect was rath-
er remarkable. ALI sense of bodily IA
| tigue and even of unpleasant motion
was banished. / 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 lie this: Opium is moral
and imaginative, and paints things as
/ they really do not exist throws an
| artif;c' al halo around them, as it were;
| chloral merely increases the power of
| en- oying the real. The picture on the
| brain Of the chloralist Is, SO to speak,
| Photographic compared to that on the
| bra of the op.um-eater, which might
be called phantasmagorieal. II know
| from experience, said neighbor to
me the other evening, 1.-THE work that
choral does. For many months, every
night on my return from business,
found my poor wife drunk and my
dear children, who used to be so merry,
silent and unhappy. But there was nc
smell of intoxicating liquor in the room,
or even about her breath, and all my
efforts to unravel the dreadful mystery
were unavailing But one evening
after tea she dropped from her chail
VIII lie trying to speak to me dropped
like log on the floor, and
carried her to bed. Her face wa:
red and swollen, her lips blue; hel
arms and legs were marble cold, ever
hard; she had no pulse at the wrist
but breathed as quietly as an infant
sat beside her all that long night
Towards morning the sleep was broker
by means and deep catching sighs, ane
when she at length awoke it was dread
full even to look upon her suflcrings ant
agony. From the doctors lips | frs
heard the name of ehloral. She is nov
nervous irrhee lie, and must | fear
soon succumb to her infirmities. y
Yes, chloral is set moving in society,
and thousands annually fall beneath its
wheels. Let any reader of the Eagle
ask any wholesale chemist, and he viii
be told that tons on tons of this danger
Gus drug are annually imported (from
Germany and other partsl which art