CHLORAL AND OTHER NARCOTLCS. 647 



members of the toxical family of luxury. Let me rather devote a few 

 pages to the consideration of two or three of the less commonly used 

 agents, with the dangers of which the public mind is not so strongly 

 impressed, and with the facts of which it is not so conversant. I will 

 take three of these as the most important at the present time namely, 

 chloral hydrate, opium, and absinthe. 



The serious truth that chloral hydrate after its introduction into 

 medicine was soon made use of as a toxical luxury has already been 

 adverted to. At the meeting of the British Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science, held in Edinburgh in the year 1871, 1 drew ear- 

 nest attention to this subject. I said and the words were published 

 in the report of that year (page 147) " There is another subject of 

 public interest connected with the employment of chloral hydrate. I 

 refer to the increasing habitual use of it as a narcotic. As there are 

 alcoholic intemperants and opium-eaters, so now there are those who, 

 beginning to take chloral hydrate to relieve pain or to procure sleep, 

 get into the fixed habit of taking it several times daily and in full 

 doses. I would state from this public place as earnestly and as forci- 

 bly as I can that this growing practice is alike injurious to the mental, 

 the moral, and the purely physical life, and that the confirmed habit 

 of taking chloral hydrate leads to inevitable and confirmed disease. 

 Under it the digestion gets impaired ; natural tendency to sleep and 

 natural sleep is impaired ; the blood is changed in quality, its plastic 

 properties and its capacity for oxidation being reduced ; the secretions 

 are depraved, and, the nervous system losing its regulating, controlling 

 power, the muscles become unsteady, the heart irregular and intermit- 

 tent, and the mind excited, uncertain, and unstable. To crown the 

 mischief, in not a few cases already the habitual dose has been the last, 

 involuntary or rather unintentional suicide closing the scene. I press 

 these facts on public attention not one moment too soon, and I add to 

 them the further facts that hydrate of chloral is purely and absolutely 

 a medicine, and that, whenever its administration is not guided by 

 medical science and experience, it ceases to be a boon, and becomes a 

 curse to mankind." 



This was stated within two years after the substance chloral hydrate 

 came into medical use. If at that time the mind of the public had 

 been as ripe as it is now for the acceptance of the truth, or if I could 

 then have reached the ear of the public more plainly, much evil might 

 have been nipped in the bud. As it was, the warning had little effect, 

 except to expose me to adverse criticism as an alarmist, and the evil 

 has gone on with increasing rapidity and mischief. There is at the 

 present time a considerable community addicted to the habitual use of 

 chloral hydrate on one pretense or another, and a learned medical so- 

 ciety has recently framed a series of written questions on the subject, 

 which questions it has felt it expedient to address to members of the 

 profession of medicine generally for their replies. 



