The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-11-14

lamps, S6ss; boxes, s4e7; vessels for opium cooking, 500 About 5000 needles used for morphine injections were all given up and broken. In that province it is ab- solutely necessary to have a certificate to buy opium, and the same person can only get his supply once a month, the allowance being fixed by the opium com missoners.
 Opium Cures.
 I find a general belief among the Chi nese that the opium habit can be cured. Everywhere pills to take away the crav- ing are sold, and in most of the great cities, hospitals and refuges have been established where the slaves of the drug go to break off the habit. n Foochow there are six such hospitals, and four of these report that they have already cured S259 persons. Such institutions have been established at Pekin, Man. king, Tientsin, Wuchang, Canton and in many other places. Foreign doctors have also come In, and profess to be able to cure the opium habit One of these who Is well recommended Is an American, Mir. C. B. Towne. He professes to be able to cure any one Of the opium habit in three days. He established hos pitals at Tientsin and Shanghai. He has started one at Pao Ting Flu, where it is said that 100 patients came to him during the first month and were cured. Then the number of applications mysterious decreased. and MT. Towne found that this came from report to the effect that, although the cure was successful, it always killed the patient within 100 days thereafter. This story was false, but it almost broke up the hospital.
 MT. Towne's institution at Tientsin was established at the expense of the vceroy, and officials who were cured received a certificate certifying that fact.
 Opium Versus Morphine.
 One of the great dangers in the use of many of the anti-opium remedies is that they contain the drug in some other form The government has had to extend its laws to morphine. and in one of the recent edits the importation of morphia and of hypodermic syringes is prohibited and their sale Is limited to practicing phy- sicians.
 The morphine habit has long been prev alent in many parts of the Chinese em- pire, and vast amount of morphine pills are still consumed In certain cities along the Langtsekiang the hypodermic injecting of morphine is common. They have professional peddlers who go about with hypodermic syringes up their sleeves and give injections at the rate of about 2 cents apiece. Such men are to be found in the teahouses, and are ready to give one jab in the arm upon asking.
 In the past 1t was customary for the members of a party to stand up in 8 row and hold out their arms with the sleeves rolled ap to their shoulders. The most common place for the injection was about the biceps, but many of the opium fiends were tattooed from their necks to their wrists, and also on other parts of their bodies. The morphine injectors make their own solutions. and, as they use dirty water, the danger of their com nunicating diseases is great
 The government is doing all it can to abolish these morphine practices. It has stringent laws against them, but they are st'll secretly carried on in most of the cities In the meantime, I understand tl'at the English and Germans have been flooding China with cheap hypodermic syringes since the present crusade began, and that the Chinese imperial customs tosrd has now issued regulations pro- tibiting their ilnpor alton, except by the foreign medical practitioners and foreign druggiets. Hereafter all morphia and syrfnges landed without a special permit from the customs will be conflscated.
 As to Raising Opium.
 The greater part of the opium used in China is raised at home That im- ported from India amounts to millions of dollars year. but a far greater quantity Is grown upon Chinese soil. Poppy plan taEons are cultivated as far north as Marchuria, and there are provl1ces in southern and western China where opium is one of the principal crops. The ie,luc- ing If the areas of cultivation is causing . considerable loss to the farmers. The