S. T. Morton

“ The special effect of opium on the system is functional. This fact is one great encouragement in attempting a cure from the "habit." The sudden recuperative power manifested, after this paralyzing deadweight is removed, is a great surprise to the patient. Difficulties which had borne to him the grave aspect of serious organic disease vanish as by magic.
There was no secret about this treatment—there were no wonderful remedies unknown to the world used. The therapeutics included bromide of sodium, hot baths, electricity, and other well-known sedative and tonic medicines. ”

“ There is a striking parallel between the method of the Maine lumberman I have described and that of advanced German science in the treatment of this disease. In both cases the patient suffers from the intense cruelty of ignorance! The best thing to do for the unfortunate victim of morphia, according to this learned work, is to secure him in rooms under charge of a competent keeper or nurse, his person and baggage having been searched, and from the rooms "all opportunities for attempting suicide having been removed. ”

“ The sense of profound satisfaction, ever present, at the release from its slavery, as well as a lively appreciation of the great danger of again tampering with it, is sufficient to leave the temptation—whatever it may be—from such knowledge, powerless. ”

“ Of innumerable articles in periodicals and books by the dozen which I have read, it must be said that, while the evils of the "habit" are pictured in burning lines, when the discussion of treatment is reached, the habitué is left to believe that, in his case, if it be not impossible of cure, an attempt at total abandonment with whatever medical skill he could command would be attended with such hazards, and would inflict such tortures, mental and physical, as would be beyond the average power of endurance. ”

“ Not the least significant point in this veritable account is the fact that the young man always believed that his father had purposely brought about the catastrophe for the sake of bringing matters to a speedy end! Has the usual treatment of the disease by physicians at this day anything to offer that is much better than this man's summary method? Perhaps no work on the subject has appeared in recent years more careful and thorough in its scientific intention than Dr. Levinstein's "Morbid Craving for Morphia." ”

“ That power in the human system which at times seems endowed with a personality of its own—that dual existence, as it were, with its Briarean arms of nerves—revolted. There was a period of disturbance and prostration of strength, with some restlessness. ”