418  Number  and  Kind  of  Drug  Addicts.    { ^ptember^iT' 
of  the  enforcement  of  this  law  would  be  a  besieging  of  hospitals  by 
drug  addicts  and  a  crime  wave  of  national  scope,  accompanied  by  a 
trail  of  suicide  and  death.  While  the  effect  of  the  enforcement  of 
the  Federal  anti-narcotic  law  has  been  clearly  evidenced  by  hospital 
reports,  the  results  have  been  by  no  means  so  far-reaching  or  so 
startling  as  had  been  expected. 
The  most  shocking  of  the  several  available  reports  is  that  of 
Wm.  D.  McNally,  Coroner's  Chemist,  Cook  County,  Chicago,5  who 
states  that  during  the  month  of  March  seven  deaths  occurred  in  Cook 
County  that  were  indirectly  due  to  the  sudden  cessation  of  the  use  of 
morphine.  Four  died  from  taking  an  overdose  of  morphine.  One 
of  the  four  died  from  taking  an  overdose  of  "  Dr.  Weatherby's 
Remedy,"  a  morphine  cure  containing  over  seventeen  grains  of  mor- 
phine sulphate  per  ounce.  During  the  month  of  December,  1914, 
not  a  single  death  occurred  in  Cook  County  from  morphine.  During 
January  and  February  the  record  shows  one  death  for  each  month. 
Clifford  B.  Farr  6  reports  that  since  the  enactment  of  the  Harrison 
law  the  number  of  admissions  to  the  Philadelphia  General  Hospital 
of  cases  of  morphine  and  heroin  addiction  has  markedly  increased. 
In  the  first  sixty-eight  days  of  1915,  eighty-six  patients  addicted  to 
heroin  were  admitted,  while  in  191 1  there  was  not  one. 
Other  cities  have  reported  similar  results,  but,  so  far  as  known, 
the  amount  of  suffering  has  not  in  any  way  measured  up  to  the  results 
that  were  predicted  by  newspaper  writers  and  others  when  the 
Federal  anti-narcotic  law  was  under  consideration. 
Now  just  a  word  in  regard  to  the  origin  of  drug  addiction. 
C.  E.  Terry,  City  Health  Inspector  of  Jacksonville,  Fla.,  in  the  report 
of  a  study  of  local  conditions,7  states  that  of  213  cases  of  drug 
habituation  studied  by  him  personally  their  origins,  in  the  order  of 
their  frequency,  were  as  follows : 
Through  physicians'  prescriptions  or  treatment  personally  ad- 
ministered, 54.6  per  cent. 
Through  the  advice  of  acquaintances  (for  the  most  part  them- 
selves users),  21.6  per  cent. 
Through  dissipation  and  evil  companions,  21.2  per  cent. 
5  J.  Am.  M.  Assoc.,  1915,  vol.  64,  p.  1264. 
6  J.  Am.  M.  Assoc.,  1915,  vol.  64,  p.  1270. 
1  Am.  J.  Public  Health,  1914,  vol.  4,  p.  32. 
