HISTORICAL SKETCH. XXVI 1 



physician's prescribing an opiate for a simple pain. 

 He asks the profession to raise their voice against 

 this terrible crime. On the other side of the water, 

 we find the note of warning has been sounded as 

 well. Dr. Minnet, of Edinburgh, reports cases of 

 opium eating, all starting from physicians' prescrip- 

 tions. ... In using opium, the profession should 

 always bear in mind that we might be the agent of 

 setting the spark to the fire that may only be ex- 

 tinguished with life. ... In cases of insomnia 

 and of neuralgia we have a number of new and 

 safe remedies that ought to lessen materially the 

 prescribing of the direct narcotics." 



In view of these facts, is it not in order to ex- 

 press the very earnest desire that physicians be 

 most scrupulously considerate and cautious in mak- 

 ing such prescriptions ? 



It has been suggested that a law should be 

 enacted forbidding the sale of the instrument and 

 the drug to any outside the medical profession, 

 and that physicians should never commit them into 

 the hands of patients or of any irresponsible per- 

 son, but restrict their use to themselves or to an 

 instructed nurse. Some means of limiting and 

 controlling this practice is of vital importance. 



The Right Rev. Bishop of Little Rock has re- 

 cently called the attention of the Catholic Total 

 Abstinence Union to this subject. He says : " What 

 priest in charge of souls does not know that it is 

 the well-nigh universal practice among physicians 



