The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1886-01-15
authoritiye testimony az "a this. III tina,

authoritive testimony a to this. All tho
same time, even those physicians who
have used it most successfully will not
make the claim that the drug can vet
take its place in pharmacopnia with 9TH
ers OF equal energy about which every-
thing is known and concerning which
experimentation is at an end. Al pros
ent the remedy is yet in It's infancy, and
its full scientific characterization is stir
incomplete. This being the case and it,
remarkable potency being considered,
the unprofessional public had far better;
keep away from it, ever If what deters
them be irrational prejudice. Prejudics
Of this kind every physician will know
how to overcome, if there DO any neces1
sity for using the drug. and it certainly
ought'not to be used except under pro-
f~essional supervision.
1t is. nevertheless, already widely SO
used, il we may believe the reports Of
accident due to its ignorant employ
ment which the newspapers hero and
there throughout the country publish,
from time to time. Cocaine is proba5
bly, having the same career that other
narcotics have always run before they,
finally took up their place as remedies.
We no longer believe in the elixir Of
life or the philosophers stone, but a
large part of the public still seem to!
regard the phaimacopnia as likely at
any moment to be enriched by somej
paradisiacal drug whose potency for
pleasure shall be infinite and unao-i
companied by any corresponding pain.
1t is in some degree still q popular,
superstition that the law of action and
reaction, applicable in al other cases,
fails entirely when confronted with .
drug. And this in spite of the fact, at
tested by prominent physician some
years ago, that the only branch of med-,s
icine in which enormous strides have!
not been made within the last half GEM.
fury is therapeutics. Yet quack medi-a
cines for incurable diseases were never,
more successful, and the ordinary drug
clerk is regarded by many persons in.
measurably the same way that the I'M
dams regard their s'medicine men," and
his prescriptions for chronic complaints
as the African savage regards his fetch.
What is most noteworthy, however,
in connection with this popular faith in
the miraculous efficacy of drugs is the
extent to which they are resorted to byl
people who need absolutely nothing sol
much as to abstain from them. With
this class the different narcotics are, of;
course, in greatest demand. The pheno-3
menon is moral rather than physical.
The numbers who resort to tobacco and
alcohol in excess testify by no means
exclusively to diseased stomachs and
d%isordered nervous systems, but to :,
desire, almost acute enough to DO called
a passion, to escape from moral sur
roundings and change the conditions of
moral sensation. The humdrum of!
life, not to speak of its ''intolerable bur-,
dens" and painful necessities. makes
the imaginative temperament, which is
to be found as often in the howell as in
the palace, uncontrollably restless and.
defiant. Vino would not eat opium,
from time to time if he could be sure of
perfect immunity from the pains and
perils Of itp Only the sane, the wisel
and the healthy-who form, after ALL
o small part Of any community. The
history of choral as a~popular narcotic
must be familiar to very one. The
avidity with which ii seized upon
by that large majority Mich is unhappy
or unhealthy, or both, received a check
only when its %deleterious effects became
known. Cocaine is manifestly destined
to the same career. It will be a public
blessing if reports Of its abuse, however
sensational and ~unscientific, lead people
to recall the great fact of human life, J
namely that only by spiritual means can
spiritual ills be circumvented or dimin-
ished. Philadelphia Press.