<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
<p class="center"><small>POISON HABITS</small></p>
<p><span class="smcap">There</span> is a very peculiar property
attached to poisons, especially
those possessing anodyne
properties—that is, they are
capable of forming the most enslaving
habits known to mankind.
Thousands of people to-day
are enchained in the slavery
of the poison habit in one form
or another, and very few are
ever successful in wresting them
selves free when once it has been
contracted. The habit is formed
in the most insidious manner.
Often, in the first instance,
some narcotic drug is recommended
to relieve pain or induce
sleep. In a short time the
original dose fails to produce the
desired effect, it has to be increased,
and afterwards still
further increased, until the victim
finds he cannot do without
it, and a terrible craving for the
drug is created. By-and-by the
stupefying action affects the
brain, the moral character suffers,
and the unfortunate being is at
last ready to do anything to
obtain a supply of the drug that
is now his master.</p>
<p>This is not an overdrawn
picture, but one of which instances
are constantly to be met
with. The enslaving habit of
alcohol, when once contracted,
is too well known to need description.
Opium comes next in the
point of influence it exerts over
its victims, and a very small percentage
ever free themselves
from the habit when it is once
contracted. In most instances
it is taken in the first place to
relieve some severe pain, as in
De Quincey's case. He says,
in his <em>Confessions of an Opium
Eater</em>, "It was not for the purpose
of creating pleasure, but of
mitigating pain in the severest
degree, that I first began to use
opium as an article of daily
diet." Like others, he was compelled
to increase the dose gradually,
until at last he consumed
the enormous quantity of 320
grains of the drug a day. He
graphically describes the struggle
he first had to reduce the daily
dose, and found that to a certain
point it could be reduced with
ease, but after that point, further
reduction caused intense suffering.
However, a crisis arrived,
and he writes, "I saw that I must
die if I continued the opium. I
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_100" id="Page_100">100</SPAN></span>
determined, therefore, if that
should be required, to die in
throwing it off. I apprehend
at this time I was taking from
50 or 60 grains to 150 grains a
day. My first task was to reduce
it to 40, to 30, and as fast
as I could to 12 grains. I triumphed;
but think not my
sufferings were ended. Think
of me, as one, even when four
months had passed, still agitated,
writhing, throbbing, palpitating,
shattered; and much
perhaps in the situation of him
who has been racked." Other
cases are commonly met with in
this country, where opium eaters
take on an average from 60 to
80 grains of the drug a day.
The smallest quantity which
has proved fatal in the adult is
4½ grains; in other cases enormous
quantities have been taken
with impunity; and Guy states
recovery once took place after
no less than eight ounces of
solid opium had been swallowed.</p>
<p>Morphine, the chief alkaloid
of opium, is also abused by
many, and is swallowed as well
as used by injection under the
skin. Its action is very similar
to that of opium. It has been
recently given on good authority,
that in Chicago—that city of
hurrying men and restless
women—over thirty-five thousand
persons habitually take
subcutaneous injections of morphine
to save themselves from
the pains and terrors of neuralgia,
insomnia, and nervousness,
etc. To a delicate woman
one grain of this drug has proved
fatal, yet, under the influence
of habit, a young lady has been
known to take from 15 to 20
grains daily. A man in a good
position, and head of a large
commercial house, contracted
the habit of taking morphine
from a prescription he had had
given to him containing 4 grains
of the drug. As the habit grew,
he would have the medicine
prepared by four different
chemists daily, and swallow the
contents of each bottle for a dose,
until he took on an average over
24 grains a day. This being
put a stop to by his friends, he
commenced to take chloroform,
which he would purchase in
small quantities until he had
collected a bottleful, and then
he would drink it, usually mixed
with whisky. He eventually
had to be placed under restraint.</p>
<p>Chloroform is not often taken
habitually, but several instances
have been met with where as
much as two ounces have been
swallowed by a man. The
effects, when taken by the mouth,
are similar to those which follow
its inhalation. Chlorodyne,
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_101" id="Page_101">101</SPAN></span>
which generally contains both
morphine and prussic acid in its
composition, is also much abused,
especially by women. Some
women have been known to
consume two ounces a week of
this preparation. Cocaine, an
active principle of the <em>Erythroxylum
coca</em>, is capable of
exciting a powerful craving,
which apparently holds its victims
in a grip of iron until they
are willing to spend any amount
of money in obtaining the drug.
Arsenic eating is a habit fortunately
rare in this country,
although cases have been met
with in which women have
gradually become addicted to
taking large quantities for improving
their complexions. The
peasants in some parts of Styria
and Hungary have long been
known to eat arsenic, taking, it
is said, from two to five grains
daily; the men doing so in order
that they may gain strength
and be able to endure fatigue,
and the women that they may
improve their complexions.
Dr. Maclagan, of Edinburgh,
states he saw a Styrian eat a
piece of arsenious acid weighing
over four grains.</p>
<p>Sleeplessness is a frequent
cause of the formation of a
poison habit, and for this purpose
chloral hydrate, perhaps,
is capable of producing more
serious results than any other
drug of its class. The fact that
it accumulates in the system,
and that the dose needs constantly
to be increased, always
renders its use dangerous in
unskilled hands. Many gifted
men have fallen victims to the
habit, among others Dante
Rossetti, who seldom was without
a bottle of the narcotic near him.
Latterly, sulphonal, a drug
derived from coal tar, possessing
hypnotic properties, has been
largely taken; and antipyrine,
now a popular remedy for headache,
is capable of forming a
pernicious and dangerous habit.
The practice of self-dosing with
drugs of this description cannot
be too strongly deprecated.</p>
<p>Some people form a curious
habit of taking one drug till at
last they become imbued with
the idea that that only and
nothing else, will have any
effect on them. The only
remedy Carlyle would ever take,
according to the late Sir Richard
Quain who was his medical
adviser, was Grey powder.
"Grey powder was his favourite
remedy when he had that
wretched dyspepsia from which
he suffered, and which was fully
accounted for by the fact that
he was particularly fond of very
nasty gingerbread. Many times
I have seen him, sitting in the
chimney corner, smoking a clay<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_102" id="Page_102">102</SPAN></span>
pipe and eating this gingerbread."
Oliver Goldsmith also
laboured under the confirmed
belief that the only medicine
that would have any effect on
him was "James' Powder." He
doctored himself with this
favourite nostrum whenever he
felt unwell, and believed it to be
a cure for all ills.</p>
<p>According to a West End
physician quite a new and most
reprehensible vice has recently
become fashionable—viz., a
craze that has arisen among
women for smoking green tea,
in the form of cigarettes. Though
adopted by some fair ladies
merely as a pastime, not a few of
its votaries are women of high
education and mental attainments.
"Among my patients,"
he states, "suffering from
extreme nervousness and insomnia,
is a young lady, highly
distinguished, at Girton. Another
is a lady novelist, whose
books are widely read, and who
habitually smoked twenty or
thirty of these cigarettes nightly
when writing, for their stimulating
effect." Though tea does
not contain a trace of any poisonous
principle, it can, when thus
misused, exert a most harmful
influence. Doubtless, the high
pressure at which most of the
dwellers in our great cities now
live, and the worry of too much
brain work on one hand, or the
lack of occupation on the other,
is one of the chief causes of taking
up habits of this kind.</p>
<p>One of the best remedies, and
one which it is to be hoped will
eventually come to pass is, that
the Legislature should render
poisons less easy of purchase, by
restricting the sale of every drug
or compound in the nature of a
poison to the properly qualified
chemist, who, by his training
and special knowledge, is alone
competent to sell these substances.
Incalculable harm is
done by habits such as we have
alluded to, and it is better often
to endure pain and torment, than
to fly constantly to what in the
end will only inflict worse punishment.</p>
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<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_103" id="Page_103">103</SPAN></span></p>
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