The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-02-25
CURING THE COCAINE PEND
How the Victims of the Deade of Drugs Are Treated New York Hospa-Lttle Known Facts About the Perncous "Dope" Restrictive Legislation Has Somewhat Reduced the Evil

New York. Feb. 24.-"Cigarette smok. ] ing never in this world caused g | death,' remarks a New York expert or 1 nervous diseases. Reports to that ef. feet are almost invariably cooked UT by sensitive relatives to save their own
 or the dead persons reputation. Prac- tically all the deaths so frequently
 mentioned as occurring from cigarette
 smoking may be guaranteed 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 medical so- licitude. He is not easily detected by outward symptoms. He guards his se- cret morbidly. his anxiety not to be- tray himself being a pathological symp- tom.
 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 1t was eX- pected 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 It increases the power of mental association. A writer starting upOli u WlAAAC NI4C lillNSiASO 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 morn ing after, the product of his fantasy is elligible--redolent only of deli rum.
 The cocaine eater at certain stages of his debauch feels sudden energy for oII nF ful fa lr n erG He could and would move a mountain Nothing is impossible But the stimu- Jus to great deeds expends itself in the delicious dream which often becomes modified into a conviction that the deeds have actually been done. Under the influence of the drug the victim 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 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 pair of pincers in hls hand with which he picked off imaginary bugs as they dropped from the ceiling. Another patient, once newspaper writer who applied to the dispensary of the Post-Graduate Hospital. asking to be saved from the demon that had him. and who was subsequently, cured by the morphine treatment, used to fire his pistol at imaginary. moving soft black shapes" which threatened to over whelm 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 had adapted Itself to 1t so that it was like machine energized by poison and working only under its stimulus This is invariably the phenomenon to occur when the body is accustomed by degrees to any drug or poison, At first Intrusion of the foreigner the sytem revOlts and sends a warning 10 the reason in the shape of a nausea. headache. or digest i've arrangement. If this is disregard ed 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 happiness. if only to insure its own ex- istence.
 Druggists before restrictive laws