Arizona republican., 1906-03-05
THE COCAINE FIENp.
How Victims of the Drug are Treated
 In New York Hospitals.

ed death, remarks a New York ex- pert on nervous diseases. Reports 10 that effect are almost invariably cook ed up by sensitive relatives to save their own or the dead persons repu- tation. Practically all the deaths so frequently mentioned as occurring from cigarette smoking may be guar anteed to be due to the misuse of CO., caine or opium in some form.
 The cocaine eater has become of late years an especial object of medical solicitude- He is not easily detected by outward symptoms. He guards his secret morbidIy, his anxiety not to be- tray himself being a pathological symptom.
 Yet the man who takes the massive dose eventually betrays it's use in the bloOdlessness of his complexion his staring eyes, and, sometimes, by his peculiar jerky gait, as though his foot struck the ground before it was ex- pected to.
 Cocaine, unlike opium, which dead ems the sense and sensibflities. is a mental etimulant, so powerful that :t fairly racks to pieces the fabric of the thought" IL increases the power of mental association. 4 writer starting upon a theme while under the infiu- ence of cocaine feels the desire to branch off upon a thousand tangents. Every other impression in his brain becomes brilliantly relative to the main thought. Yet in the cold gray dawn of the morning after the product of his fantasy is elligible-redoIeat only of deIirium
 l The cocaine eater at certain stages 1 of his debaUch feels a sudden energy for all sorts of wonderful undertak- ! ings. Nothing is impossible. But the l stimulus to great deeds expends itself i in the delicious dream which often be- i comes modified into a conviction tha. | the deeds have actually been done. Un- der the influence of the drug. the vic 1 tim is often known to confuse other ! persons property with his own He is also quite likely to neglect promises | and business negotiations supposing . that they have already been 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 a patient whom 1 he came upon sitting on the floor of a room with a pair of pinchers in his i hand. with which he picked off imag- ! mary bugs as they dropped from the l ceiling. Another patient. once a news ] A.eNl'NA WI AtGA- NlAO dIblitu al the QlS- i pensary of the Post Graduate hospital ] asking to Se saved from the demon that had him" end who was subse- | quently cured by morphine treatment. : used to fire his pistol at imaginary. l moving soft black shapes which !, threatened to OVerwhelm him. X wo- ' man who came into the hospital showed the effects of the drug in its II 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 Y system was permeated with the drug.
 and had adapted itself to it so that
 It was like a machine energized by poison and working only under its II stimulus This is invariably the phe-
 nemenOn to occur when the body IS
 accustomed by degrees to any drug or poison. At first intrusion of the for eiSner the system revOlts and sends
 a warning to the reason in the shape
 of nausea. headache. or digestive de- rangement. If this is disregarded. and the enemy. admitted again and again
 the physical being finally makes truce
 with the invader-accepts it's terms
 even at the price of health and happi-
 ness if only to insure it's own exis-
 tence.
 Druggists, before restrictive laws
 were passed used to be worried by d regular clientele of customers who bought their cocaine in powders rang
 ing all the way from half a grain tc
 ten-grain doses. or in capsules. or in
 crystals. or in tablets. Some used it hypodermically. making a solution oi
 water Physicians have been habitues
 of the drug to a larger extent tha
 the members of any other profession both because they have been tempted by curiosity. and because they alonC
 have been able always to get it with
 out difficulty. Physicians wives too
 are noticeably induIgent. and unac-
 countably. shop girls and clerks. As g
 rule cocaine eaters are persons of ar intelligent bent, attracted in the be
 ginning by reports of the brain -stimu-
 Iating qualities of the poison. Melan-
 choly people are lUred into the vice by
 the optimism it produces, only to incul
 the deep melancholic reaction which il
 turn drives them into a renewal of tn,
 dose. Presently the habit is fixed. anC ] acute cocaine poisoning sets in witt
 it's bodily deterioration and it's pecu-
 liar insanity. not unlike the deliriun ! cremens ot drunkenness.
 Legislation put something of a quiet
 Us on the promiscuous abuse of "th, bane of the South American swamps'
 when last spring the sale of cocain, ] otherwise than on doctors prescrip.
 ton, good for once only. was prOhib-
 ited. Morphine and opium may D, procured still. by subtle ways il
 toothache or earache drops and it i,
 likely that the disappointed cocain
 lover consoles himself with one or tn,
 other.
 Another reason alleged for the mo-