Readings : The Nervous System, Part 5

Hygienic Physiology: with Special Reference to the Use of Alcoholic Drinks and Narcotics
by Joel Dorman Steele, Ph.D.

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The demoralization of the narcotist is not, like that of the drunkard, rapid, violent, and palpable; but gradual, insidious, perceptible at first only to close observers and intimate friends. Here and there we find a constitution upon which opium exerts few or none of its characteristic effects. Such cases are, of course, wholly exceptional; but their very existence is a danger to others, misleading them into the idea that they may dally with the tempter without falling under its yoke, or may fall under that yoke and find it a light one. I doubt, however, whether the most fortunate of its victims would encourage the latter idea; whether there be an opium eater who would not give a limb never to have known what opium slavery means....Besides, no one can be sure, or indeed reasonably hope, that the mischief will be confined to the individual victim. That the children of drunkards are often predisposed to insanity is notorious; that the children of habitual opium eaters inherit an unmistakable taint, whether in a diseased brain, in morbid cravings, or simply in a will too weak to resist temptation, is less notorious, but equally certain. - Percy Greg, Narcotics and Stimulants, Contemporary Review.

Therefore also in America scarcely a week passes but we see announced in the public prints deaths or suicides resulting from the use of narcotics. Now, it is from tobacco: A Yale College student dies from excessive smoking; another student in the same college, and as a result of the same habit, commits suicide; a third young man is found dead in his bed in New York, from heart disease induced by cigarettes; and so, month by month, and year by year, grows in rapid increase the list of tobacco deaths. - Or, again, it is from opium. A Harvard student with two of his college companions in search of a new sensation, tries opium smoking one fatal night and dies before morning; a woman in Ohio, belonging to a prominent family, dies at the age of thirty-three years, from an overdose of morphine, her body covered with hypodermic scars; another, once the respected wife of a Baptist clergyman, becomes a morphine drunkard, drifts, step by step, into a Central New York Almshouse, and there hangs herself; a third, young, accomplished, and wealthy, falls first a victim to the morphine habit, then to opium smoking, finally becomes the frequenter of a New York opium joint, and so is lost forever to home, friends, and respectability. - Occasionally it is cocaine, as in the case of the Chicago physician, who, for the purposes of investigation, experiments with this new drug upon himself, his wife, and finally upon his innocent children; the entire family being found unconscious from the effects of the subtle narcotic. These are but solitary instances in an appallingly long list of similar cases, most of which have occurred within the last two years (1887-'88).

Cigarette Smoking is chargeable with a growing demoralization and mortality among boys and young men. It is no uncommon sight to see lads of ten years old and under, with the irresponsibility of ignorant childhood, puffing the dangerous cigarette, an. Therefore undermining health and intellect at the very outset of useful existence. Even when told of the near and remote peril. Therefore incurred, they scarcely listen, for do not they see their elders smoke and prosper? - Most of them do not understand that there is more danger to the young than to the old in the tobacco habit, more danger to some constitutions than to others, and more danger in the cigarette than even in the pipe or the cigar. Pause a moment to consider it, boys, when you are tempted to light the clean-looking, paper-covered roll and place it in your mouth. Think of the heated smoke irritating the delicate membrane in your throat, dulling your brain, and vitiating the blood which should be bounding fresh and pure through your veins. Think of the many filthy and diseased mouths from which have been cast away the tobacco refuse, picked up in streets and public places to reappear in the "Cheap and Popular Brand" which looks to you so innocent and so attractive. It is astonishing, indeed, how an otherwise cleanly boy will consent to defile himself with these vile abominations. And yet, I have known lads who - not always with perfect politeness - would fastidiously refuse "hash" at their mother's breakfast table, but who would shortly afterward serenely place one of these unknowable compounds between their lips and walk away with the air of superior manhood!

Of Chloral Hydrate, Dr. Fothergill remarks: "When this was announced with a flourish of trumpets as a perfectly innocuous narcotic, the sleepless folk hailed its advent with eager acclamation. But a little experience soon demonstrated that the innocuous, harmless drug was far from the boon it was proclaimed. In fact, the impression of its harmlessness was the outcome of ignorance of its properties. Death after death, even among medical men themselves, as well as nonprofessional persons, have already resulted from the use, or rather misuse, of this narcotic agent."

The Bromides (of Soda or Potash), also, should be used with caution, and only on the prescription of a conscientious physician. "The bromide of potash," says Percy Greg, "is claimed not to produce sleep by stupefaction, like chloral or opium, but, at least in small doses, to allay the nervous irritability which is often the sole cause of sleeplessness. But in larger quantities and in its ultimate effects, it is scarcely less to be dreaded than chloral." Overdoses of the bromides will produce among other evil effects a peculiar eruption upon the face, which, though generally temporary, is liable to reappear from time to time under certain conditions of the system, and especially upon a subsequent dose, however dilute.

Absinthe is a compound of absinthium (the essence of wormwood), various aromatic oils, and alcohol. Absinthium, taken in small doses, induces trembling, stupor, and insensibility; in larger doses, epilepsy. When, therefore, this dangerous essence is added to alcohol, it strengthens its influence to specific disease. Absinthe drinking is recognized in France as such a serious vice that it has been officially prohibited in the army and navy.

Hasheesh is a syrup prepared from the leaves and flowers of Indian Hemp. Though its use in this country is comparatively small, instances are not unknown in which reckless or curious persons have fatally experimented with it. As a medicine, it is in limited use, and with results not always satisfactory. It acts in a peculiar manner upon the nervous centers, occasioning that strange condition of the nervous system called catalepsy, in which the limbs of the unconscious patient remain stationary in whatever position they may be placed. After an average dose of hasheesh, the subject becomes the helpless victim of rapidly shifting ideas, a prominent characteristic of which is an entire loss of judgment as to time and place. A larger dose produces hallucinations and delirium, with that distressing sensation of falling through endless space which is induced in some people by opium.

Concerning all these and other narcotics, it should never be forgotten that they are true poisons, sold with the mark of skull and crossbones, useful, like strychnine and henbane, in the hands of a skillful physician, but fraught with deadly danger when otherwise employed. Their private use is never safe. The weak and nervous invalid, who can not by hygienic means build up new strength, need never hope to gain it by surreptitiously indulging in popular narcotics. Instead, he will soon discover that he has but added to his list of ills a new and fatal one. - E. B. S.