Hot Springs weekly star. (Hot Springs, S.D.) 1892-1917, 1897-11-19
MANY INToXICANTs.

MAN LIN J. NJ
Mr.. JOHNSON, WHO TRAVELS, FREE
" DISCUSSES THE SUBJECT.
Hc Occasionally INDUCES In Hasheesn
Himself How an Opium Habltue Was
Curcd-Etleric as q Substitpse For Al.
coholic Exhilaration.
johnson %''travels for" a New York
state wine and brandy producing firm
and is u veritable mine of information
concerning wines and spirits, alcohol
percentages, bouquets, methods and
processes of refining and ''aging'' wines,
and besides is u connoisseur of no mean
quality in everything drinkable. No
IL evcr saw him drink more of any al
coholic liquor than the half dozen drops
he sips before passing n wonderfully
near infallible verdict on a sample. New
ertheless johnson remarked one day to
u friend that he took an occasional
spree. "Not M alcoholic drunk, :" he
explained, ''but q hashecsh vision"
"Hashecsh!' exclaimed the other.
"Why, I've always regarded that as
more dreadful than spirits"
"Pcrhaps it is, replied johnson. 81
don't advise any one to use it. But i'll
parts of Europe and i'll all oriental coun-
tries many persons use hasheesh as do.
The effect of the drug taken i'll the
larger quantity is to stimulate the inn
agination. 1t seems to release the soul
from the body's bonds. Fatigue, depres-
sion, mental WEAKNESS, business cares,
all harassments, in fact, are thrown off,
and the mind revels i'll an abnormal and
pleasurable superactivity. l never expe-
rienced amy unpleasant reaction.
"Persons OF different tempcrameMts
are affected i'll different ways. / knew IL
man who wanted to try a dose Of
hasheesh with me. He had n most un-
pleasant time of it. He said that his
mental sutferings We're indescribable,
fear, or rather apprehension, of some
thing mysterious and more grewsome
than all the ghost stories ever told rolled
into one awful horror expressing him
throughout the short time that he was
under the spell of the hemp. He never
will try it again, for which l am glad,
for he might get into the habit of it.
Johnson's business takes him among
pharmacists Il good deal, and by way of
adding to his disclaimer of being u
hashcesh slave lie remarked that every
druggist has among his customers one
or mere opium ''tiends' who do not
feel tho bondage of the drug, although
they are cnslavcd. 81 saw IL clerk maxi
ing 100 small powders of morphine one
day." said johnson. land l asked him
why lie was putting up so many. The
clerk replied that he put up that num-
bcr every Thursday for a certain lady
on renewal of a physicians prescrip-
ton. The physician had authorized the
renewal, and the patient had been talk
ing the morphia for several years i'll the
same quantity. The habit probably
grew vi of the drug having been pre-
scribcd originally for the relief of some
obstinate pain. The patient only knew
that the powders kept her pain away.
This same drug clerk also told of
the successful cure of IL sufferer from
the opium habit, another lady who re
allied her situation and longed to be
free. She Went to live at her physicians
house. She had been drinking so much
laudanum Il day. The doctor began by
allowing her the equivalent i'll NOR
phinc in capsules, taken at the hours at
which she had been accustomed to take
the liquid. He kept her OH a nourishing
and stimulating diet and very gradual
ly, without tho patients knowledge,
reduced the sizeo # the doses of morphia.
".After atime he substituted for one OF
the morphine capsules daily one of the
same appearance, filled with cinchoni,
dia, an alkaloid of Peruvian bark like
quininc, but weaker. The patient die
not feel the difference. Another cincho
india capsule was substituted daily aft
err another week or two, and so OH, unit.
after some months the habitue was talk
ing nothing but cinchonidia one day,
with, perhaps, two morphine doses the
next. AS gradually as before thes,
We're eliminated, and the patient wa.
told one day that she had had no NOR
phia for Il month. She was surprised
and incredulous, but she at last real
lied that she was cured. l don't know
that every II could he freed from tn
opium habit i'll that manner.
1.-The druggists clerk told me of
fellow employee of his who had a pas
sion for ether. He had found him sew
eral times asleep or DOING i'll a heap o
excelsior packing in the cellar. and a
last discovered that the young man hat
been stealing ether. He would saturat,
a sponge, put it into q %pasteboard cone
hold it over his nose, and thus anes
thetize himself. You know that tn
sensation of passing under the influenc
of ether is very pleasant. 1t is akin t
the cxhilaration of alcohol. The patien
about to be operated upon is in a stat
of high spirits. no matter how great hi
anxietics may be. as soon as the ethe
has begun to intoXicate him.
"But in one part of Ireland, wher
the making of 'potlleen' has bee
squclched by the excise, the simple Ia
} tives have taken to using ether-a prod
uct not extensively purified like tina
used by surgeons. Only instead of il
Lo1;,,, ~ %1,ny J,;,,l. II II i,,1YroS n.