“I am acquainted with a clergyman, sixty-five years of age, whose mother died insane. He informs me that for ten years past he has been obliged, in order to procure sleep, to take ten grains on retiring, and ten grains more about 3 A.M. His health is otherwise good, and he is possessed of more than common intellectual power. He, however, though never in the habit of using alcoholic drinks, has the red eyes and rather ‘groggy’ appearance of a person who drinks too much. I have known of other cases where persons were in the habit of taking ten grains at bedtime, every night, for months together, with great benefit. I have never happened to make the acquaintance of a person who was addicted to its use as a simple instrument of pleasure.” Some men, in the early history of this drug, and some at the present day likewise, lauded it highly as a substitute for opium, claiming for it perfect freedom from the danger of forming a habit and the non-production of ill effects when used for a long time. Thus a correspondent of the _Doctor_[54] says:— “Long-continued use does not impair the general health. I know persons who have taken it almost since its introduction, in the same dose and with the same success.” Dr. Pollak[55] says: “The prolonged employment of chloral is not usually attended with any disagreeable effects, and if any such occur, they are of no consequence. It especially does not induce congestion of the brain or disturbance of the digestive organs.” Dr. C. W. Cram,[56] of Columbus, Ohio, writes: “Its use is not followed by that craving for its continuance which so often attends the administration of preparations of opium, especially morphine, producing a multitude of opium-eaters.” Others went to directly the opposite extreme. Dr. Madison Marsh[57] says: “Its effects are so pleasant, its use so exquisitely fascinating, that, the habit once acquired, a person becomes a slave to its use, never to stop till death closes the scene. The enchantments of alcoholic stimulants, cannabis Indica, morphine or tobacco, bind with silken cords, compared to the bars and hooks of steel thrown around the unhappy victim of this popular drug and infatuating stimulant.” The first to call attention to the possibility of the formation of a “chloral habit” was Dr. B. W. Richardson, of London, a part of whose most excellent paper[58] I cannot refrain from giving.