FORMATION OF THE DRUG HABIT.
Responsibility of Physicians.
THE Pharmaceutical Era, of New York, is against the refilling of prescriptions, and quotes a writer as saying that “in the great majority of cases, the source of the drug habit could be traced to prescriptions written by physicians in the regular way and filled and refilled until the patient had become addicted to its use.” The Era remarks: “The testimony of experts on the drug habit corroborates this statement. . . . “The statements about the drug habit made by Professor Eberle and Mr. Gordon at the American Pharmaceutical Association were recently fortified by a gentleman who has had every opportunity to study the question in actual life. It appears that the morphine habit especially is extremely common among the well-to-do. Women in society carry the use of the drug openly into drawing-rooms, taking the convenient little tablets during intervals of conversation. “It is said that a large proportion of the slaves of this narcotic owe their first introduction to its influence to the family physician, or more frequently to young doctors who are anxious to make a sudden reputation for mastery of pain and insomnia. Nothing is more convenient or effective than a dose of morphine. The relief once found is sought again, and after a few trials the habit is established. “It is easier to prevent the refilling of prescriptions than to reduce the number of ambitious and impecunious doctors. Attack the problem at the point of least resistance.”