The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1892-03-20
THE MORPHINECURSE
The Struggles of a Victim to the
Deadly Habit.
After Being Twelve Years a 'Fiend" He Finds
Relief in the Salt Lake Kelley
Institute.

The Rio Grande train to Tintic yesterday
afternoon bore as a passenger the hapuies
man that ever shook Salt Lakes soil from
his feet.
His name is w. T. Ferguson and he is {
man known all over the west and north
west coast, particularly in Oregon anG
Montana. His fame YVES of a somewhat
melancholy character, for it was as sss
morphine tend'' that he was most geuer.
ally regarded.
Yesterday completed his sixth week in
the Salt Lake Kelley institute, and he
walked forth SO different being from the
man who had entered it that his old-time
friends would have stared had they been
told 1t was Ferguson. a few minutes be-
lore he took the train for his home in
Eureka, MIR. Ferguson gave HERALD rep
resentative brief account of his twelve
years struggle with the iend morphine.
The talk was 1ull of interest of n most
peculiar kind, and it would take the pen of
an e. Z. Roe-who has never been excslIed
IN his delneatlon OF morphine victim-to
httlngly describe all the horrors to which
the narrator had been subjected.
Ferguson SAID he was forty-two Years of
age. He mad just turned thirty when he
feu victim 10 the morphine habit IN a
most peculiar way. He was in Helena
ana feil Ill with severe attack OF pneu-
monia. Bis physician, Dr. Clark, gave
him morphine powders, and he took thar
medicine Tor six weeks. He saws he never
knew what the medicine was at that time,
and be first learned it in most peculiar
way. When he recovered of his illness he
went to MiSsoula, where be was suddenly
sleZed win the most terrible nausea COM
faarTnl moi in, Il ~.
II his limbs were being pulled asunder.
Thoroughly alarmed, he consulted doctor
who examined him and bluntly told him he
was lien :" Ferguson WIS insulted and
ordered the DOCTOR out of his room. The
next physician simply went and bought
him morphine ''gun"-a hypodermic
syringe. He put one injection into nv
ARM" said Ferguson, land leeped out Of
bed, well man. Then for the first time
knew l had been under the control of the
habit" The doctor warned him that he
must gradually diminish his doses and
break it of altogether as soon as possible.
But il was the same old slory-how many
morphine victims, entrusted with their
''gune" ever succeeded in breaking aysv
from the habit! He tried he saws. COD
alone knows how hard, to do without the
drug. but he could as soon have done with
out air or water. For twelve years he
struggled, fought, gave up, struggled and
gave up again. 1t was no use and he be-
came a confirmed mend" 10 whom sixty
grains day was An nothing. He told how,
IN desperation he once had himself taken
away on long trip to the mountains
where it was impossible to obtain morphine.
At the end Of that time he was fit fora an in
sane asylum, and his companions had to
get him back with all speed to where the
drug could be obtained, or his life wopld
have paid for it. After the horror of thar
experience ne says. he never allowed HIM
self to be without morphine, and the
thought that his supply was running short
Used to set him all in tremble. When
ever he was Oh the coast, he said, he always
sent TO well known drug house in Salt
Lake for his bottles-one-eigh of an
ounce in each. He always bought by the
case, and was in panic until ii arrived for
fear something should happen to detain il.
A year and q half ago he came to Tintic
and engaged in various enterprises: he
was barber, contractor, mine owner
and q sporting man. He always made |
money and was well TO do. But he had
been twelve years a victim to morphine
and he felt his mind beginning to 20. He