Articles have, from time to time, appeared in various medical journals, at home and abroad, detailing certain alarming symptoms following immediately upon the injection, subcutaneously, of moderate doses of morphia. Such accidents have been ascribed by most authors, to the entrance of a needle into a vein, with the consequent sudden passage of the drug into the circulation; by some, to the injection of a bubble of air into the vein; by others, to fright attendant upon the dread of the operation and the prick of the needle; and by still others to the rapid absorption of the remedy when a vein is not punctured. Which of these hypotheses is the correct one it is at present difficult to decide; perhaps each may have proved a factor at certain times or in certain cases. The weight of opinion would seem to favor the idea of sudden entrance of the drug into the circulation by puncture of a vein. By a careful study of some of these cases we may be able to come to a definite conclusion. Dr. M. E. Woodling, of North Branch, Minn., writes:—“My first case in which the hypodermic injection of morphia was tried, resulted as follows: Patient large, strong and robust-looking man. Complained of pain in the course of the sciatic nerve, and of lumbago. Injection given back of the trochanter major, patient sitting; given slowly. I turned to lay the syringe on the table, when the patient appeared unsteady, straightened rather rapidly and persistently, and slipped from the chair, falling full length, supine, upon the floor, pale and with absent respiration. He was now perfectly limp. No response to shaking or questions. Spoke the word ‘breathe,’ loudly, in his ear. This he obeyed. Repeated this for about a minute, and in another he was able to sit up, but was very sleepy and unsteady, requiring assistance. In about five minutes he was able to stand, and I took him out on the street and walked around with him for an hour. I then took him home, still sleepy, but improving. The next morning he was all right, but the pain was only partially relieved. Other injections were given, with no bad consequences.” Dr. A. Atkinson, Professor Materia Medica, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Baltimore, in reply to my fifth query, writes: “Never had death to result, and but one accident, and that was apparent suspension of animation for about fifteen minutes, in a young lady, very anæmic, in whose case I injected one-eighth of a grain of the sulphate of morphia (the regular Magendie’s solution) into the rectus muscle of the abdomen, at the repeated and urgent entreaties of the patient, to relieve an obstinate uterine neuralgia. She recovered from the neuralgia and from the effects of the morphia in three-quarters of an hour. I had, a year before, injected one-fourth of a grain into the arm of this same patient, for cardiac neuralgia, with complete relief of the pain in one hour, and with no bad effects.”