Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-02-23

A meeting of a committee on mar
cotics, held in New York, is planning to
have a resolution adopted in Congress
calling on all State Legislatures to
adopt uniform laws enforcing restric-
lions on narcotic traffic. No intelligent
opposition to that can be presented, but
modern science is far beyond that simple
regulation of the traffic.
Statistics never thrill as does the
tragedy of a single case. Millions are
insane, but
stay, jailer, stay and hear my woel
She is not mad who kneels to thee;
For what I'm now, too well I know,
And what was, and what shall bel"
X
There are statistics gathered in Ma
tion-wide research by the United States
Treasury Department which form a
basis for various estimates of the num-
Der of narcotic addictS in this country.
The estimates range from 100000 up to
100000. and the fact that they vary
so greatly neutralizes the shock which
would come even with a vision of an
army of 10000 victims of this torture.
An abstract clinical statement of
what the effect of narcotic addiction is
may interest the curious, but If ones
own family contains victim, or if
inconceivable?-th reader himself finds
his craving uncomfortable, and awakes
to consciousness that he, too, is
bound and PROSTATE in its merciless
torture. the result is horrible.
Until recent years. it was the prac-
tice even of physicians to count the
narcotic disease as a habit" due to
weakness of the will-power of the
patient, or to indulgence for the sake
OF sensual pleasure form of degen-
eracy which prevailed mainly in the
underworld"
Today. medical authorities who have
kept pace with advanced therapeutics
know that 1t Is not always a habit" but
an actual diseased condition, in the
same sense that typhoid fever or rheu-
matism is disease. And. Furthermore,
many, If not great majority, of VIC
Tins are made such by legitimate medi-
cal treatment for other diseases, in
which some forms of narcotics conSti-
tute the only alternative from death.
Not all physicians have caught up
with this advanced knowledge of the
nature of narcotic addiction. Lest a
mere layman be accused of audacity
from The Narcotic Drug Problem" by
Ernst S. Bishop. M. D., clinical profess
sor of medicine, New York Polytechnic
Medical School. member of narcotic
committee. conference of judges and
justices of New York State, ETC.:
page 26:) THE old fallacy that an
opiate might be administered safely to
sufferer, so long as the patient did
not know what was being given him.
is completely disproven by the evidence
of addicted infants. and by exhaustive
laboratory experiments upon addicted
animals. This fallacy has
been responsible for many case of
addiction"
pages 95-97:) 1.-THE United States
Federal legislation which went into
effect in 1914 was what Is known as the
Harrison law, and. In its purpose and
drafting, wise piece of legislation. 1t
sought to limit and control the use of
opiate drugs and cocaine, by making
their possession and distribution illegal
by other than those of professional and
other status designated in the law as
qualified for their intelligent application
and responsible distribution. Un-
informed as to the now established facts
of addiction disease, the administrators
of the law. and to large extent the
medical profession. tended to regard the
supply of opiate to an addict as the
prolongation of habit, and not as med
ication indicated by the mechanism and
supplementary of disease-and there
fore as not being legitimate medical
practice. This attitude had the effect
of making the practitioner unwilling to
receive the narcotic addict as a patient
The popular conception of an
addict, and even the description met in
certain medical text books, was that Of
dope fiend', an irresponsible panderer
to a morbit hadit. Measures
which might be very useful in the for
chile control of those who can be Justly
characterized as dope fiends' work great
harm to those who are simply sick peo-
ple."
Are we dealing too much with scien-
tif1c generalization, in place of depicting
tangible single illustration? Then let
us read true story" of one of the
cases here in Washington. The writer
has been in contact with this story for
four or five months, since receiving by
mail a piteous appeal for American Le-
gion hslp. The victim and the several
eminent physicians in contact with the
case know nothing of this publication Of
the facts. Maybe medical ethics differ
from just human sympathy, in secretive-
res:.
Scene I: A young soldier is drilling
on duty with cavalry, upon the Rio
Grande, in early 1917. 1t is some miles
from camp headquarters. when his gal
Looping horse stumbles. falls and steps
on the back of its overthrown rider
The victim is seriously injured. but
there is only veterinarian within CALL
and he gives him some white tablets
and sends him to camp on a st-etcher.
News comes that the soldiers wife
has gotten divorce on the ground Of
incompatibility. or some similar plea.
and next day after the divorce married
German. on the eve of our declara-
ton of war. She takes with her their
young son and. with her new husband,
adopts her own boy and so influences
him that for a decade that real father
disabled and helpless-has been I'M
able to communicate with his boy-or
his former wife.
Scene II: Years pass In one hospital
after another He is rated by the
Veterans Bureau q case of permanent
total disability" and for five or six
years he receives 500 a month COM
pensation, 'Aabesides disqualification in
Veterans Bureau hospitals, : Six years