The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-05-22
WOMEN WHO USE MORPHINE.
Physicians and Druggists Agree That
the Number of Victims is Legion.

Physicians and Druggists Agree That
the Number of Victims is Legion.
From The Netv York Sun.
The discovery of 100 empty morphine
bottles concealed behind sofas, under the
carpet, and in various other out-of-the- way
places about the ladies' waiting-room of o
large retail store has called attention again
10 the alarming prevalence OF the morphine
habit among women. This habit has
greatly increased since the invention of the
hvpodermic syringe A jeweler said re-
Gently, as Customer left the store after
depositing the little case with its magic
needle which charms away all pain and sor-
row, slightly broken at the point and in need
of adjusting: "You would be surprised il
you knew how many of those are brought
here to be mended in the course of year by
young, apparently vigorous men, as well as
the more infirm, and by ladies most of all.
Some of them only come few times before
their suffering is over forever, but the ma
jority of them continue to bring us the lit
tie instrument for repairs year after year,
growing themselves more untidy as to dress,
more unreliable in mood, and prematurely
aged in appearance" There seems indeed
to be a fatal fascination in the bypodermic-
its rapid relief from discomfort, its almost
instantaneous exhilaration and stimulation
"a 6N0lJ AOAC Va bn5 pLI cACdl DcAlK, tIS pD-
tency in drowning mental pain as well,
transforming its victims to a condition in
which they are superior to all petty ills and
annOyances.
Oriental people indulge in the use of
opiates for purely sensual delight, but with
American women the diminishing power of
resistance to pain, physical and psychical,
and the consequent increased demand for
some powerful counteracting stimulant, all
n xyof r h1tad RI a aH nf
the habit. The demands of artificial life,
which exhaust more brain force than is
created: the designations of society, which
hinder natural sleep and rest; continual
excitement, strife for place, the Affections
and disappointments incident to womea's
existence, together with intense sensitive
ness, both mental and physical. resulting
often in exquisite suffering from apparently
trivial causes, bring about a condition of
nervous prostration-the genuine, not the
fashionable disease, in varying degrees of
severity-to relieve which physicians fire.
quently recommend narcotics and stimu-
lants whose effect is so welcome that the
woman herself prolongs the treatment
after the physician has ordered its discon-
tinuance.
1t is said that rs per cent. of morphinists
trace the origin of the habit to some illness
where the physician prescribes the drug,
then transfers its administration to the pa
tent, who presently succumbs to the habit
through her inability to control the appe-
tite which each additional dose fastens and
increases. A promising young artist, suf-
fering from some slight functional diff
Guilty attended by some pain, but not serious
in its results, called in a physician fire.
quently, who administered morphine for
relief. After several visits the doctor in
structed the young man himself in the adj
ministrating of the medicine, saying it was
needless to call him in every time. 1t was
but short time before the patients one in
terest in life conferred upon the medicine
and how to obtain it. His splendid physique
became shrunken, his shoulders bowed as if
with age, his dress careless and disordered,
his expression vacillating and anxious, his
will power so completely shattered that his
repeated attempts to abstain from the use
of the drug lasted only while the stimu-
lating effects of the last dose gave him
courage to plan but never to carry out the
cure planned So enthusiastically.
A once noted belle, now in an asylum for
incurable inebriates, took morphine at first
as girl to make her eyes bright. Later in
life, when heavier care came or her chill
dren were ill, she took it to make her brave
and strong in bearing her sorrows burden,
until the habit was confirmed. And so the
stories repeat themselves. This habit is fire.
quently found among the actresses, who. as
class, are intensely nervous, and depend
largely upon stimulants of some kind to sus.
tain them during the performance of their
roles
While as rule women use morphine as a
relief from pain, and thus acquire the desire
for it, there are isolated cases among
women of morbid imagination where purely
sensuous enjoyment or inability to control
an appetite, which is the outgrowth of a
feeble organization transmitted by heredity,
results in the morphine habit. Asylums
contain side by side inebriates and chronic
morphinists, though the latter are less
numerous, in which inherited defective and
demoralized will power is the primary cause
of ruin.
The morphine habit does not prevail
among women to the extent that alcoholism
is found among men, for it is confined
chiefly to women in society and rarely found
among the poor or working people, Indi-
viduals have varying idiosyncracies as to
the amount consumed, some reaching their
limit at two or three grains day, and Others
attaining maximum of sixty or seventy
grains. 1t is seldom that habitues poison
themselves fatally with the drug, apparently
realizing instinctively their limitations and
living just within them.
The mental and moral deterioration fol-
lowing its use is similar to that seen IN
drunkards. but its use is more disastrous,
owing to the strong element of deception
which is a popularity of the effect of the