Drugs that enslave : $b The opium, morphine, chloral and hashisch habitsKane, H. H. (Harry Hubbell)
Science
Drugs that enslave : $b The opium, morphine, chloral and hashisch habits
Kane, H. H. (Harry Hubbell)
Drug addiction
Spasmodic closure of the mouth of the vagina on attempting to introduce
the finger or a speculum, I have noticed in two cases. It, also, readily
passes away after the use of morphia is abandoned.
A woman becoming pregnant in the early course of her addiction to this
habit will, in the majority of cases, abort before reaching full term,
especially if the amount used is large. Levenstein has noted the fact that
wives of men addicted to the habitual use of this drug in large doses had
in the last two years never carried children to full term, although young,
healthy, and having borne children before the husband became an habituè.
There is no question in my mind but that the excessive use of this drug
by one or both parents, but especially the mother, in case she is able to
carry her child to full term, will modify disadvantageously the physical,
mental, or moral development of the child thus born. A physician from the
South tells me of the case of a lady who commenced the use of opium at the
beginning of her pregnancy. She was delivered of a fair-sized child that
grew up in fair, though not robust health, and menstruated at the proper
age. She is, however, very simple and childish, still plays with dolls,
although a young lady, is very eccentric, and shuns the society of young
men. The mother, who is still living, ceased to menstruate at the age of
30 and has never menstruated since, some twenty years. For the past two or
three years she has been using sixty grains of gum opium daily.
Dr. Alonzo Calkins[6] relates several cases where the children of such
parents were either physically or intellectually deficient. I give but
one of them: “At an inquest held by Dr. Macnish it appeared that a child
five years of age, though to appearance only so many weeks old, had never
been able to walk, nor so much as utter an articulate sound. The mother,
during her gestation (as was in evidence), had taken to morphine, using a
drachm a day in the months just preceding her demise. A child born before
the habit had become fixed showed a normal development and the aspect of
general health.” Another case is related where both parents were “healthy
and robust by original constitution and by habits of life too, with the
exception that the woman had, for a very considerable period, been in
the practice of using morphine regularly and to great excess. An infant
born subject to the liabilities, had only a very imperfect physical
organization, with weak intellectual indications.”
By carefully conducted experiments on animals (pregnant dogs and
rabbits), Levenstein found that the continued use of morphia invariably
produced abortion, the fœtus being born dead.
With the cessation of the menses the breasts usually dwindle in size, and
the voice attains a more masculine tone.
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