Am.  Jour.  Pharna.  \ 
October.  1903.  J 
Acquirement  of  Drug  Habits. 
477 
Pennsylvania  reports  several  heroin  cases,  another  the  purchase  by 
a  small  retailer  of  100,000  -grain  morphine  pills  at  a  time.  The 
sale  of  cocaine  in  drinks  by  saloon  men  is  extensively  followed. 
Virginia  reports  enormous  growth  of  cocaine  habit  among  ne- 
groes. 
General  reports  indicate  that  the  sale  of  narcotics  is  not  restricted 
to  any  section  of  the  country,  nor  confined  exclusively  to  the  fallen 
and  lower  class.  Information  comes  from  several  sources  that  in 
callings  which  demand  many  hours'  work  at  a  time  or  the  hours  of 
night,  cocaine  is  resorted  to  for  stimulation. 
From  other  report  cards  we  gather  the  following :  Six  stated 
that  they  did  not  treat  drug  habitues,  therefore  kept  no  record  ;  one 
that  they  treated  out-patients  only  and  could  give  no  accurate  fig- 
ures ;  an  institute  for  feeble-minded  women  in  New  York  had  no 
habitues ;  a  home  for  boys  in  New  York  had  many  youths  addicted 
to  tobacco,  none  to  drugs  ;  the  latter  was  said  of  a  report  from  a 
girls'  home  in  Pennsylvania ;  another  from  Pennsylvania  stated  that 
they  kept  no  information  of  this  character,  that  if  addicted  they 
were  forced  to  stop  it  here.  There  is  little  to  be  gathered  from 
annual  reports  of  insane  asylums  for  the  reason  that  no  close  record 
is  kept  of  this,  very  frequently  being  only  incidental  to  the  cause ; 
there  are  a  great  many  cases  referred  to  as  "  cause  unknown," 
where  possibly  many  cases  not  otherwise  noted  exist.  In  a  report 
from  Georgia  we  find  eight  cases  of  morphiomania,  two  in  a  report 
from  Kentucky ;  Michigan  reports  eighteen  from  intemperance, 
narcotics  included  ;  Montana  reports  seven  cases,  all  morphine,  three 
using  in  addition  cocaine  and  one  smoking  opium.  One  New  York 
hospital  reports  five  men  and  four  women  addicted  to  the  drug 
habit  out  of  1,700  patients,  and  states  that  all  the  cases  have  used 
opium  in  some  forrmand  one  man  in  addition  cocaine.  In  addition 
to  this  a  report  from  New  York  covering  eight  years,  concerning 
3 5  >299  cases,  there  were  1 34  men  and  1 28  women  addicted  to  the  drug 
habit.  Pavilion  for  the  Insane,  Bellevue  and  allied  hospitals  for 
three  months,  in  587  cases,  reports  two  females  with  toxic  insanity 
due  to  morphine.  Texas  reports  three  cases  in  addition  to  those 
referred  to  in  the  schedule.  Washington  refers  only  to  three  cases 
and  Wisconsin  six.  An  institution  devoted  to  the  treatment  reports 
on  nearly  3,000  cases  treated,  covering  a  period  of  several  years,  the 
inmates  being  from  twenty-two  States,  and  also  upon  100  morphine 
