The Work of Opium

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Oct 23, 1879

The Work of Opium.

OPIOPHAGY, otherwise called opium eating, has grown to formidable proportions in the United States. In 1867, when our population was 37,000,000, the amount of opium imported was 136,000 pounds; in 1876, with an increase of but 7,000,000 in the population, the importation had arisen to 340,000 pounds. Thus, during these ten years, while the population had increased only about 20 per cent, the importation of opium had considerably more than doubled. Much of it is used for medical purposes, but investigation has shown that the larger proportion of it is consumed by opium eaters. It is hardly credible, though it is given on doctors' authority, that in the city of Indianapolis there are nearly 500 of these, who made away with 900 pounds of the drug last year. In the State of Michigan statistics on the subject have been furnished by ninety physicians. They reported 1313 habitual users of opium, or an average of 13 cases within the observation of each of these physicians.

--Chicago Times.