THE OPIUM CURSE IN CHINA.
FROM a late report of Rev. George A. Stuart, M.D., of the Methodist Hospital at Wuhu, China, we take the following extract:— "Our experience with the treatment of opium smokers has been anything but satisfactory. The use of opium seems to deaden all of the mental and moral faculties, so that no dependence can be placed upon the patient carrying out the line of treatment. We have tried all methods to insure success, from the most rigid rules, strict searching and guarding, to depending entirely upon the honor of the patient. If there was any difference in the results, it was in favor of the latter plan. In this way very few except those who really desired to be cured came to us. The regulation we finally adopted was a fee of $2.00, and twenty-one days' rice money, all in advance. If the patient remained the twenty-one days and obeyed the rules of the hospital, $1.00 was returned to him. We have also used all the methods of treatment of which we had knowledge, including immediate withdrawal of the drug and gradual diminution. We found that no "ironclad" rule could be adopted in this regard. The treatment must be adapted to the condition and disposition of the patient. Many of the patients do not desire to wholly abstain from the use of the drug, but, being unable to purchase so much as their systems require, they want to reduce the quantity to within the capacity of their cash account. Where patients openly express such a desire at entering, we refuse to receive them. "Opium smoking has become such a universal vice in this part of China that it seriously interferes with receiving patients for the treatment of other difficulties. At first we prohibited all use of opium by the patients, in any form, or in any place. We gradually relaxed this rule, and only stipulated that the drug should not be consumed on the hospital premises. But now, finding that many who really need treatment for other diseases are shut out by a rigid enforcement of this rule, we have, a la Chinoise, concluded not to know anything about its infringement if we do not see it. "Another vice that is becoming quite prevalent, and that more directly interferes with the proper treatment of disease, because it produces greater physical deterioration of the body, is the consumption of morphia, principally in the form of anti-opium pills and lozenges. And, sad to say, many native Christians and a few foreign missionaries are—I wish I could say ignorantly—engaged in the sale and distribution of this drug in the above-mentioned forms. While the anti-opium societies are endeavoring to suppress the opium traffic, it would be well for them to investigate to what extent morphia, pure or manufactured, is sold in China. They may find that while getting rid of one evil the enemy is substituting one more subtle, and therefore more damning and damnable."