Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1906-03-09
PERNIcIoUs COCAINE HABIT.
Victims of the Drug Special Objects
of Medical SoIicitude,

world caused a Qedln, remarks new
York expert on nervous diseases.
Reports to that effect are invariably
cooked up by sensitive relatives to
save their own or the dead persons
reputation. Practically all the deaths
so frequently mentioned as occurring
from cigarette smoking may be guar
anteed to be due to the misuse of
cocaine or opium in some FORM"
The cocaine eater has become Of
late years an especial object OF medi-
cal solicitude. He is not easily de-
tected by outward symptoms. He
guards his secret morbidly, his anx-
iety not to betray himself being a
pathological symptom.
Yet the man who takes the mas
sive dose eventually betrays it's use in
the bloodlessness Of his complexion,
his staring eyes, and sometimes by his
peculiarly jerky gait, as though his
foot struck the ground before it was
expected to.
Cocaine, unlike opium, which dead
ems the sense and sensibilities, is a
mental stimulant, so powerful that 1t
fairly racks to pieces the fabric Of the
thought" 1t increases the power Of
mental association. A writer starting
upon a theme while under the infiu-
ence of cocaine feels the desire to
branch off upon a thousand tangents.
otbar i,,onraooipY, on his hY-a n
becomes brilliantly relative to the main
thought Yet in the cold gray dawn Of
the morning after, the product Of his
fantasy is ntelligible-redolent only
Of delirium.
The cocaine eater at certain stages
Of his debauch feels a sudden energy
for all sorts of wonderful undertake
ings. He could and would move a
But the stimulus to great deeds ex-
pends itself in the delicious dream
which often becomes modified into a
conviction that the deeds have actu-
ally been done. Under the influence
of the drug, the victim is often known
to confuse other persons property
with his OWL. He Is also quite likely
to neglect business promises and busi-
ness negotiations supposing that they
have been already fulfilled.
Cocaine delusions are marvellous.
The chief neurologist of the New York
Post Graduate Hospital and Medical
School, in charge of the clinic for ner-
vous diseases, tells Of patient whom
he came upon sitting on the floor Of
room with a pair Of pincers in his
hands with which he picked off imagi-
nary bugs as they dropped from the
ceiling. Another patient, once a news
paper writer, who applied to the dis
pensary of the Post Graduate Hospi-
tai, asking to be saved from the demon
that had him" and who was subse-
quently cured by the morphine treat
ment, used to fire his pistol at imagi-
nary, moving soft black shapes"
which threatened to overwhelm him.
A woman who came into the hospital
showed the effects Of the drug in its
further stages. Her face was drawn
into strained lines and her eyes were
wide and staring, though she had quite
the appearance of seeing nothing. Her
system was permeated with the drug.
and lad adapted itself to 1t so that
it was like a machine energized by
poison and working only under its
stimulus. This is invariably the phe-
nomenon to occur when the body Is
accustomed by degrees to any drug or
poison. At first intrusion of the for
eigner the system revolts and sends
a warning to the reason in the shape
of nausea, headache, or digestive de-
If this is disregarded, and
the enemy admitted again and again,
the physical being, finally weakened,
makes truce with the invader-accepts
its terms, even at the price Of health
and happiness, If only to insure its
own existence.
Druggists before restrictive laws
were passed, used to be worried by a
regular clientele of customers who
bought their cocaine in powders rang
ing all the way from half a grain to
ten grain doses, or in capsules, or in
crystals, or in tablets. Some used 1t
hypodermically, making a solution
with water. Physicians have been hab-
itues Of the drug to a larger extent
than the members Of any other profess
sion, both because they have been
tempted by curiosity and because
they alone have been able always to
get it without difficulty. Physicians
wives too are noticeably indulgent
and, unaccountably, shop girls and
clerks. AS a rule cocaine eaters are
persons of an intellectual bent, attract
ed in the beginning by reports of the
rain-stimulating qualities Of the pois-
on. Melancholy people are lured into
the vice by the optimism 1t produces,
only to incur the deep melancholic re-
action which in turn drives into a
renewal of the dose. Presently the
habit is fixed, and acute cocaine pois-
oning sets in with it's bodily deteriora
tion and Its peculiar insanity, not un-
like the delirium tremens Of drunken
ness.
Legislation put something of quietus
on promiscuous abuses Of "the bane
of the South American swamps" when
last spring the sale of cocaine other
wise than on a doctors prescription,
good for once, only, was prohibited.
Morphine and opium may be procured
90 ,,,ht1a IN tontbooha or