THE MORPHINE HABIT WITH MEDICAL MEN.
IN a work on the morphine habit, lately published in Paris, much interesting information is given concerning morphinism and morphinomania, some of which will be new to most of our readers. It is stated that Germany, France, and the United States are the countries in which the vice is most widespread, but that it has its victims in Russia, Sweden, and Turkey, and that even in the extreme East morphine as a narcotic is said to be supplanting opium. Statistics are furnished of one thousand cases, collected from all parts of the world—six hundred and fifty men and three hundred and fifty women. These statistics show that of the male morphinists the medical profession supplies the largest number, 40 per cent. Men of leisure come next, with 15 per cent.; then merchants, 8 per cent.; while peasants, clergymen, and politicians occupy the lowest positions on the list. Women of means are the most numerous class among the females, 43 per cent.; followed by wives of medical men, 10 per cent. In Germany there are entire villages whose inhabitants are addicted to the use of the drug, but the general belief that the morphine habit is more extensively practised in Paris than in any other city is contradicted. Morphinomania is said to occur with greatest frequency between the ages of twenty-five and forty.—Health.