Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1899-04-28
USERS OF MORPHINE.
THE DRUG RAPIDLY ENLARGTNG ITS
CIRCLE OF VICTIMS.

at the Shrine Of the Death Breeder
| In Great Numbers.
1.-THE amount of morphine used by
women in New York is increasing at
an alarming rate said a physician.
81 do not give the drug at all, save in
extreme cases, for believe we doctors
are largely responsible for the spread
of the evil. 1t seems such an easy, mer-
ciful thing to relieve acute suffering by
dose of morphine, and it would be all
right if the patients couldn't get the
drug themselves. They can get it.
There's the trouble.
Il was called to see one of my pa
tients last week. She is a wealthy wo-
man. She developed the morphine habit
two years ago, when she had serious
illness. Since then she has had period
ical sprees with morphine, in spite of
all we could do to prevent her. She al
ways says that the deplora BILE state she
gets into is due to other causes, but 1
can tell. as soon as 1 see her, whether
she has been taking morphine. Last
| week, when / went to see her, she was
| a nervous wreck and said she had been
agonizing with rheumatism. Rheuma-
| tism is a handy thing. A doctor can't
swear that patient hasn't got it. l
accused the woman of having been on
a morphine spree. She denied it. l ap-
pealed to her husband. He searched her
bureau and chiffonier and found 200
morphine pills. She had bought them
all at one time, but wouldn't tell who
sold them to her.
| .'Of course there's law against sell
ing morphine except on prescription,
but morphine fiend can always get it
if he is persistent, and generally he is
so. Any physician can tell habitual
morphine taker at glance. So can
druggist The latter reads the unmis-
| taxable signs in a mans face and, if he
hasn't a conscience. will sell the NOR
phine victim what he wants. The drug
| gist knows that the purchaser will guard
| the secret quite as closely as he could.
| But, if person with no symptoms of
the morphine habit wants to buy the
drug, he will probably have great diff
Guilty in getting it. No pharmacist, even
| if not particularly reputable. wants to
take the chances of being hauled up for
breach of the law.
~ am constantly running across
cases of the morphine habit, especially,
as L said. among women. The life they
lead when active socially uses up their
nerves, and they take morphine for neu
ralgia until they can't get along with
out it. Usually they are ashamed of the
habit and conceal it carefully, but some
times they are quite open about it,
take their morphine regularly and will
not listen to reason. Not month ago a
beautiful young woman showed me a
new chatelaine ornament she had just
bought. 1t was a remarkably handsome
gold case. studded with jewels. and look
ed like a vinaigrette. The top opened,
and inside were a tiny hypodermic
syringe and tube of morphine. l said
something more forcible than polite and
tried to make her see the insanity of
the thing, but she only laughed and
told me she carried morphine pills in
her chatelaine bonbonniere, so that she
would be all right if she happened to he
where she couldn't use the hypodermic,
which she preferred. 1 threatened to
tell her husband, but she said he knew
about it and didn't care. She didn't
bother him, and he didn't bother her. 1
went to the husband, and he merely
shrugged his shoulders and said he new
er interfered with his wife. Then 1 re-
lieved my mind again and told him
what thought of him-and now there
is one family less on my list of patients.
''That was an exceptional case, adj
nit. Usually relatives and friends of a
person who takes morphine do every
thing possible to break up the habit,
but morphine fiend is remarkable for
cleverness. A great many women who
don't want any one to know that they
have the habit work the physicians for
morphine. l know women of good fam
lily who never go more than two weeks
without terrible attacks of neuralgia or
rheumatism or something else that
causes excruciating agony. The doctor
is called in and tries to relieve the wo-
man, but nothing relieves her until he
tries morphine If he is clever enough
to see through the thing and too con-
scientious to help out the little farce,
he gives up the case. Another doctor is
called in and another, until one pre-
scribes what is wanted. That's an old,
old game. Many struggling young
doctor has thought his fortune made
because wealthy woman in his neigh
borhood called him in,r but when she is
seriously i'll she goes back to her old
doctor. She only wants the new one to
prescribe morphine for her neuralgia.
There's no excuse in the world for
a doctor acquiring the morphine habit.
He knows better. Yet some of the doc
tors do it. One famous old New York
doctor used to take his morphine as
regularly as he took his breakfast, and.
whenever he gave hypodermic injec-
ton to patient, he took one himself
while he had the syringe out, just for
sociability. 1 suppose. He never went
to pieces under it. but I presume he |
would have done so in time.
mo one but a physician can realize
how this special vice is increasing and
how serious problem it presents. As |
a class the medical profession takes