15 persons use 1 drachm each day. 4 ” 3 ” ” 7 ” 4 ” ” 12 ” 1 ounce ” 4 ” 2 ” ” 1 ” 3 ” ” 1 ” 4 ” ” _Gum Opium_— 3 persons use 10 grains each day. 5 ” 20 ” ” 9 ” ½ drachm ” 12 ” 1 ” ” 4 ” 2 ” ” 2 ” 3 ” ” 1 ” 4 ” ” Morphia is used either by the mouth, rectum or hypodermically. I know of a curious case, to be detailed more fully at a subsequent time, where the patient, a young lady, took morphine first subcutaneously, then by the rectum, and finally by the mouth. I am of the opinion that morphia, when continuously used, works more harm when taken by the mouth than when taken subcutaneously. Moreover, that the habit is more difficult to break, and relapses more prone to occur, in the former than in the latter class of cases. Opium or morphine by the mouth, after a time, exercises a directly paralyzing and anæsthetic effect upon the mucous membrane of the alimentary canal, and gives rise to hepatic derangement and sometimes serious disease. The subcutaneous injection of morphia undoubtedly exercises a baneful effect upon the same surfaces and organs, but not so directly as when taken by the mouth. Among the Eastern nations opium is used chiefly by smoking. As this is rarely seen in this country, save among people from those countries, it does not especially concern us. Moreover, a full account of these practices may be found in books of travel and other treatises upon that special branch of the subject. To Dr. Alexander Wood, of Edinburgh, belongs the credit of first discovering and practically applying the hypodermic syringe to the treatment of painful affections, more especially neuralgias. Drs. Isaac E. Taylor and Washington, of this city, claim to have used it in this country in 1839, while Wood’s discovery was made in 1843, and his first article appeared in 1855. Wood’s instrument was first brought to this country in 1856, by Prof. Fordyce Barker, of this city. Then comparatively unknown, it is now in the possession of almost every physician in the world. In my work upon the hypodermic use of morphia[3] I made, in the preface, the following statement, the belief in which has since been strengthened: “There is no proceeding in medicine that has become so rapidly popular; no method of allaying pain so prompt in its action and permanent in its effect; no plan of medication that has been so carelessly used and thoroughly abused; and no therapeutic discovery that has been so great a blessing and so great a curse to mankind, as the hypodermic injection of morphia.”