Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1897-12-02
STA union SPECTATOR AND

.s.. s. IA TN
MANY INTOX.ICANTS.' 1
MR.. JOHNSON, WHO TRAVELS, FREE
.izeLYg DISCUSSES THE SUBJECT
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He occasionally INDUCES In Hasheesh
Himself - How an Opium Habitue Was
Cured-Etheric Is q Substitute For Al
n scoholic Exhiaaration.. / iE se&'
johnson travels for'' a New York
state wine and brandy producing firm
and is veritable mine Of information
concerning wines and spirits, alcohol
percentages, bouquets, methods and
processes Of refining and "aging' wines,
and besides is connoisseur of no mean
quality in everything drinkable. No
one ever saw him drink more of any al
coholic liquor than the half dozen drops
he sips before passing wonderfully
near infallible verdict on sample. New
ertheless johnson remarked one day to-
friend that he took an occasional
spree. sNot an alcoholic drunk, he
explained, "but hasheesh vision.
'sHasheeshl'' exclaimed the other.
why, I've always regarded that as
more dreadful than spirits.
"Perhaps it is, !" replied johnson. "I
don't advise any one to use It. But in
parts of Europe and in all oriental coun-
tries many persons use hasheesh as do.
The effect of the drug taken in the
larger quantity is to stimulate the i'm
agination. It seems to release the soul
from the body's bonds Fatigue, depres-
sion, mental WEAKNESS, business cares,
all harassments in fact, are thrown of,
and the mind reve1s in an abnormal and
pleasurable superactivity. I never expe-
rienced any unpleasant reaction.
"Persons Of different temperaments
are affected in different ways. I knew a
man who wanted to try dose Of
hasheesh with me. He had most I'M
pleasant time Of it. He said that his
mental sufferings were Understandable,
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 am glad,
for he might get into the habit Of it.
Johnson's business takes him among
pharmacists good deal, and by way of
adding to his disclaimer Of being q
hasheesh slave he remarked that every
druggist has among his customers one
or more opium s'fiends" who do not
feel the bondage Of the drug, although
they are enslaved. IT saw a clerk max
ing 100 small powders Of morphine one
day." said johnson, "and I asked him
why he was putting up SO many. The
clerk replied that he put up that num-
Der every Thursday for certain lady
on renewal Of a physicians prescrip-
ton. The physician had authorized the
renewal, and the patient had been TAX
ing the morphia for several years in the
same quantity. The habit probably
grew out Of the drug having been pre-
scribed 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 sufferer from
the opium habit another lady who re-
allied her situation and 1onged to be
free. She went to live at her physician
house. She had been drinking so much
laudanum a day. The doctor began by
allowing her the equivalent in NOR
phine in capsules, taken at the hours at
which she had been accustomed to take
the liquid. He kept her on a nourishing
and stimulating diet and very gradual
ly, without the patients knowledge,
reduced the size Of the doses Of morphia.
After time he substituted for one Of
the morphine capsules daily one of the
same appearance, filed with cinchoni-
dia, an alkaloid Of Peruvian bark like
quinine, but weaker. The patient did
not feel the difference. Another cincho-
india capsule was substituted daily aft
or another week or two, and SO on, until
after some months the habitue was talk
ing nothing but cinchonidia one day,
with, perhaps, two morphine doses the
next. AS gradually as before these
were eliminated, and the patient was
told one day that she had had no NOR
phia for month. She was surprised
and incredulous, but she at last real
lied that she was cured. don't know
that every one could be freed from the
opium habit in that manner.
1.-THE druggists clerk told me of a
| fellow employee of his who had pas
sion for ether. He had found him sew.
eral times asleep or doing in heap Of
excelsior packing in the cellar, and at
last discovered that the young man had
been stealing ether. He would saturate
a sponge, put it into pasteboard cone,
hold it over his nose, and thus anas-
thetize himself. You know that the
sensation Of passing under the influence
Of ether is very pleasant. It is akin to
the exhilaration Of alcohol. The patient
about to be operated upon is in a state
Of high spirits, no matter how great his
anxieties may be, as soon as the ether
has begun to intoxicate him.
But in one part of Ireland, where
the making of 'potheen' has been
squelched by the excise, the simple ma
tives have taken to using ether-a prod
uct not extensively purified like that
used by surgeons. Only instead of in
haling it they drink it. It induces ex-
treme exhilaration, then sleep, and the
drunkard awakes with headache, a
sick stomach ace an unpleasant, sweet
taste in the mouth, just as the surgeons
patient does The ether drinking makes
a man noisy and quarrelsome and reck-
less while its exhilarating effect lasts,
and is in other ways far worse than
whisky. A man may be drunk and So
Der again in 10 minutes The local cler-
gy are very bitter against the excisemen
for driyin0 ont tho ,zolxz h.,,.