p. 7 | Opium as a Medicine

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Dec 28, 1876

Opium as a Medicine.

Of all the stimulants to which man flies for consolation and inebriation, opium is the most insidious, the most dangerous, and the most terrible in its consequences. The drug comes to us in so many disguises and on such apparently proper occasions that the most temperately-inclined person may find himself its victim before he dreams of being in danger. The use of opium is a solitary habit and is not often learned from association or example. It is seldom or never first used in its crude state, but is taken simply as a medicine or sedative—and perhaps by medical advice—under the guise of laudanum, paregoric and the numerous preparations of morphine. Sometimes the physicians give it in pills, powders and tinctures, and sometimes inject it into the blood by minute syringes.

The patient enjoying the soothing and quieting influence of the charming poison, is lured to its continued use on his recovery, and by degrees becomes so accustomed to it that it gets to be an actual necessity, and he can neither sleep or eat or think without his accustomed potion. But what makes the matter worse is that to-day's dose will not produce the desired effects to-morrow. Hence the dose is increased, until in a short time the victim consumes a daily quantity that would kill half a dozen men not accustomed to it. Five grains of morphine will kill any ordinary man, and yet we have known an habitual user to swallow 20 and 30 grains a day, without apparent injury. But injury, dire and terrible, has been incurred nevertheless.

After a few months' indulgence the victim finds himself thoroughly bound to his fatal habit. The horrible reaction has commenced. He must keep himself charged with the drug continually or he suffers the torments of the damned, and he must consent to suffer and starve the appetite at once or he is irretrievably lost. If it is hard to give it up to-day, it will be much harder to-morrow, and it should be “now or never” to the man who would be saved from an untimely and most awful death. A few days suffice to recover from a drinking spree. But it takes weeks and sometimes months to overcome the opium habit.

We knew a man who had used 25 grains a day. He was determined to leave off, and we asked him on the sixth or eighth day of his abstinence to describe his sufferings. “I cannot find words,” said he, “to tell my torments. Every bone in my body aches, my brain is tortured, and my whole nervous system wrung as with a vice. I can only say that if I had one hundred thousand dollars I would give it all for only one hour’s cessation of the agony I endure.” And this man was a Christian and the grace of God and his own good resolution enabled him to pull through nearly a month of constant torment, and he was cured.

In view of such facts as we have mentioned, if any of our readers are in the habit of using any of these death-dealing preparations of opium, we beg of them to cut from it immediately and forever. Delay will only make the penalty greater. Now—now—now is the only accepted time. Continuance will be certain death, and if you die in breaking your chains you will perish in a good cause. —Church and Republic.