The Dangers of the Opium Vice by D. H. Kress, M. D., Medical Supt. Washington, D. C., Sanitarium

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Sep 11, 1907

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 33, No. 37.

The Dangers of the Opium Vice

By D. H. Kress, M. D., Medical Supt. Washington, D. C., Sanitarium

The practise of opium-using has assumed gigantic proportions in the Chinese Empire and has wrought fearful ravages among its people. The habit is not confined to this nation alone, but is rapidly spreading in civilized countries.

According to the report of the American Pharmaceutical Association, in 1902, there was an increase of 57,000 pounds in the amount of opium imported into the United States as compared with the figures of the previous year. Other countries have equally as unpromising a showing, in fact, in the near future, in civilized lands this drug bids fair to claim as many victims as it has in the Chinese Empire.

While it is not smoked as freely in these countries, it is used in the form of laudanum and the salts of morphin.

Among recent products none is more freely and widely used than heroin—a morphin salt which many employ with the idea that it is a harmless substitute for morphin. On the contrary, it has all the dangers of morphin salts in general, and additional dangers of its own. Cohon, writing in American Medicine, says he has seen suppression of urine and threatening coma from small doses of heroin (one-twelfth gram) prescribed to check cough or relieve pain. Especially dangerous are the trade preparations containing heroin. These preparations are widely advertised as cough syrups, asthma cures, etc. He declares that preparations of this kind should never be prescribed. Heroin is one of the most toxic agents of the morphin group.

Consumed in America.

About 160,000 pounds of the salts of morphin were consumed in America alone during the year 1903—considerably more than twice as much as the amount imported for the twelve months of 1901.

The drug is found in many of the patent medicines, and even in plug tobacco and cigars. Many find themselves slaves to these medicines and certain brands of cigars, not knowing that they were really slaves to the opium habit.

The dire effect of the many so-called “soothing syrups” upon thousands of little innocent babies can scarcely be imagined. The essential ingredient of these syrups is always some form of opium. Serious injury is always sustained by the little ones, altho the full results may not be seen until later in life. Better by far to let the little one yell and suffer a little while than to quiet it with such drugs. The sleep produced in this manner is the sleep of death, they may awake from it and they may not. Even in childhood a craving may be established in the system for the drug.

Opium, we are told, was at first exclusively used by the mandarins of China, to beget a certain energy of manner, and as a stimulant equipping them with keener gusto either for pleasure or toil. It was at first innocently offered to visitors as a mark of respect, as in civilized countries the cup of tea or coffee is served to visitors. The flattered caller was almost forced to partake of it as an act of courtesy. In this way the habit spread, at first among the well to do, the nobility, and others who were brought in contact with the mandarins. Afterward the drug found its way to the lower classes under the name of “polite tobacco;” and by them was first smoked from promptings of vanity or a desire to imitate the example of the nobility. Habit finally established a love for the drug and bound them in bands that they were unable to break. At the present time there is not a district in the Chinese Empire free from the curse of this pernicious narcotic drug.

Power of the Habit.

A Chinese Laborer of the Canton Province. A Representative of the Race of Opium Users.

Once the habit of opium taking has been acquired, the craving for the drug is irresistible, and the effort to abandon its use is followed by intense suffering, which the devotee for lack of will-power is unwilling to endure; thus he remains a hopeless slave to the habit. Recognizing the evils of the drug, the use is discouraged among youths, as in civilized countries we discourage the use of tobacco among the young.

The Chinese begin when about twenty years of age to smoke a pipe a day. By smoking only from one to three pipes a day they may live for twenty or thirty years. Many, however, lose all self-control, and fall victims to the drug completely, using from six to eight pipes a day; such live only from five to six years after the habit is acquired.

It is a deceptive drug for the victim imagines that he can not live without it, for does he not feel worse when attempting to do so? Many also suppose that it possesses the power of imparting mental and physical strength, and augmenting one's usefulness, and increasing his pleasures. This delusion exists universally among the ignorant classes who, therefore, especially fall an easy prey to the habit. Opium possesses no such subtle properties. Opium, like all other narcotics, deceives its devotees.

The real constituent that causes the stimulation and feeling of exhilaration and well-being felt by the opium fiend is a poisonous alkaloid known as morphin. This alkaloid is almost identical with alkaloids found in other products that are just as freely used in civilized countries as opium is in China. The action of the alkaloids found in the poppy, the cacao seed, the coffee berry, and in the tea, are very similar. They all act upon the nervous system in such a manner that one dose tempts the second, the second creates a craving for the third, and the third demands the fourth. Thus these habits become fixed, and men and women do not realize their real condition or the injury they have sustained by their use until an effort is made to give them up. The fact is the slave of stimulants is carrying on business on borrowed capital and must eventually become a mental and nervous wreck. This, no doubt, accounts in part for the many nervous diseases and the increase of insanity in modern times.

Having once experienced that by the use of an opiate one is enabled to do what otherwise could not have been done, the greatest temptation exists to resort to it again and again, or whenever a tired or exhausted feeling appears.

Opium kills. Its influence is only and always destructive whether taken in small or large doses. Its continuous use will eventually undermine the strongest and most robust constitution, altho for a time it may not be realized.

In the poor offspring of the opium-user may be seen the evil results of the drug. The children lack either vitality and have a tendency toward disease and premature degeneracy, or they are born idiotic.

Give It Up.

We would urge all who are not addicted to this or other narcotics not merely to touch not, and taste not, but also to handle not, poisons that may result in the ruin of men and women. This applies especially to physicians and nurses, for frequently the craving for these narcotic drugs is created by the medicine prescribed or administered at the bedside of a sick one.

Those who feel they can not get on without a narcotic, be it opium or some other drug, should abandon its use at once. Do not attempt to give it up gradually, for this will mean failure, but, in the strength of God, say, I WILL GIVE UP THIS EVIL EVEN IF IT MEANS DEATH TO ME. It certainly is better to die in the effort to give it up than to live a slave to the habit. It does not mean death, however, it means life. There will be some suffering, this must be expected, but even this may be minimized by the exercise of the will and by suitable treatments.

To give up the use of opium or any other narcotic drug habit, take a period of rest for two or three days; keep quiet; eat nothing the first day and drink hot water, with a little milk added, frequently during the day. The juice of oranges, apples, peaches, pears, or grapes may be taken whenever desired. A well-beaten, fresh, raw egg may be taken in the fruit juice or milk several times during the day. On the second day, begin the use of some simple foods, poached or boiled eggs and breads, and fresh fruit at the close of the meal. By the end of the second day the headache and extreme nervousness and feeling of prostration has probably greatly subsided or disappeared. The patient should continue always to live upon simple, non-stimulating and non-irritating foods and especially use freely of fruits.

The treatment of the morphia and allied habits becomes a comparatively simple matter in a well-equipped sanitarium, where the physician has at hand the appliances for the administration of rational treatment and a thoroughly trained nurse who can cooperate with him in everything that pertains to the welfare of the patient.

I have found that God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think in such cases, and that man's extremity is God's opportunity. He will hear the cry of the one that is in so horrible a pit and will surely lift him up, place his feet upon a rock, and put a new song into his mouth, and establish his going. I have seen this experience repeated again and again in cases that were considered hopeless.