480  Acquirement  of  Drug  Habits.  {Aloc"!ober,Pi£m' 
birth.  My  mother  takes  this,  I  will  try  a  little  of  it,  is  another  trend 
of  the  habit,  as  well  as  other  association  in  various  walks  of  life. 
The  negroes,  the  lower  and  immoral  classes,  are  naturally  most 
readily  influenced,  and  therefore  among  them  we  have  the  greater 
number,  for  they  give  little  thought  to  the  seriousness  of  the  habit 
forming. 
I  have  before  me  a  report  from  New  Jersey ;  a  mother  purchased 
morphine  pills  several  times  a  week,  her  son  acquired  the  same 
habit ;  another  mother  takes  laudanum,  now  her  daughter  does  the 
same.  Nearly  all  report  headache  remedy  habitues ;  one  says  if  that 
is  a  habit,  I  have  about  one  hundred ;  I  sell  about  eight  gross  per 
year.  A  Dover's  powder  habitue  was  new  to  me,  but  knowing  the 
reporter  personally,  entertain  no  doubt  whatever.  Diarrhoea  rem- 
edies are  reported  in  habitual  use  by  quite  a  number  ;  one  reports  a 
whole  family,  including  young  children,  addicted.  They  quickly 
become  morphine  and  laudanum  users.  Quite  a  number  report 
addiction  due  to  physicians  in  being  too  ready  with  the  hypodermic 
injections  and  suggesting  to  the  patient  to  send  for  a  few  morphine 
pills.  We  have  many  reports  expressed  in  the  following,  which  we 
copy  verbatim  from  an  Indiana  letter :  "  The  most  deplorable  con- 
dition pertaining  to  the  drug  habit  of  late  years  is  that  many  of  the 
leading  lights  in  the  medical  profession  should  become  slaves 
to  a  vice  which  they  are  supposed  to  combat."  Another 
writes  that  quite  a  number  of  habitues  of  his  locality  lay  their  acqui- 
sition to  two  physicians  who  were  habitues  themselves.  This 
result  is  natural,  but  deplorable.  The  other  addictions  are  ascribed 
to  the  use  of  patent  medicines,  already  described  and  exhibited  in 
about  thirty-eight  letters  and  reports. 
I  have  not  devoted  any  space  to  the  lower  walks  of  life  and  will 
quote  two  in  part.  One  from  Montana  reads  :  «  Most  drug  fiends 
of  this  section  come  from  the  Pacific  coast.  They  commence  with 
smoking  opium,  which  becomes  too  expensive  and  consumes  too 
much  time,  so  they  eat  morphine ;  then  they  use  it  by  injection 
because  it  goes  further,  then  they  tip  their  injection  off  with  cocaine 
because  it  deadens  the  pain,  and  gradually  they  use  more  cocaine 
than  morphine."  The  other  report  carries  with  it  the  same  idea 
relative  to  morphine  and  cocaine,  and  says  further  that  cocaine 
fiends  are  vicious,  but  that  the  habit  is  not  as  chaining  as  morphine. 
Reviewing  now  the  reports  received,  we  cannot  say  they  are  as 
