MORPHINE HABIT. 



435 



be well to promise a drink if he will eat a piece of steak ; but as a 

 matter of treatment, or by way of " tapering off," we may gener- 

 ally reject alcoholics. 



When a quiet sleep has been secured, and a meal of solid food 

 has been eaten and retained, the patient generally progresses favor- 

 ably.] 



[CHAPTER X. 



MORPHINE HABIT OPIUM-EATING. 



CLOSELY allied to chronic poisoning by alcohol, with its frequent 

 accompaniment delirium tremens, is the result of long-continued 

 use of opium or the salts of morphine. This habit is not uncom- 

 mon, and as it is generally begun under the physician's recommen- 

 dation, we may consider ourselves as responsible for its cure. 



As a patient suffering from indigestion finds his pain relieved 

 by alcoholic stimulants, he resorts to them more and more frequent- 

 ly, and finally employs them to excess ; in the same way frequent 

 attacks of pain from neuralgia, rheumatism, or inflammation induce 

 repetition of the doses of narcotics that have once been found effi- 

 cacious. Hence it would seem imperative that, when prescribing 

 the various pain-quellers, we should warn the patient against too 

 frequently resorting to them, and explain to him that they all grad- 

 ually lose their effect, and after being used for a time cease to afford 

 relief, or must be given in gradually increasing doses. The prepara- 

 tions of opium being especially liable to abuse in this way, we may 

 picture to the patient the painful symptoms of chronic poisoning 

 that are likely to result from their continued use, and which may 

 finally prove more annoying than the original pains for which the 

 anodyne was given. It is also claimed that protracted use of opium 

 begets a special tendency to neuralgia, and demoralizes the entire 

 nervous system. 



There is no doubt that many opium-eaters reach advanced age 

 under the influence of that drug ; many of those who drink intoxi- 

 cating liquors, even to excess, live to be quite old, and many aged 

 men have been smokers from their youth ; but, as a rule, free and 

 continued use of opium, alcohol, or tobacco will be followed by 

 their peculiar toxic effects. It seems that any of these articles may 

 be used with greater impunity on a full stomach ; and those who 

 habitually indulge in them only after a full meal are less liable to 

 suffer bad results. 



