_Morphine and Cocaine Intoxication_,--Morphine, an alkaloid of opium, is used very extensively as an intoxicant. Since 1890 the importation of opium into the United States has increased fourfold, although physicians are now using less opium than they formerly did. The insomnia, worry, moral distress, which bring on the alcoholic habit in some persons, lead to morphinism in others. Some physicians, by carelessly prescribing morphine for neuralgia, migraine, dysmenorrhoea, or any pain, make their patients slaves of this drug. The degenerative effects of morphine are not so great nor so rapid as those of alcohol. It does not shorten life so much as alcohol does, nor are the children of a person addicted to the use of the drug so liable to idiocy and imbecility. The mind is enfeebled--slowly in some cases, rapidly in others. The patient will resort to almost any means to obtain the {116} drug, if he is deprived of it. Authorities hold that he will lie without reason, merely for the perverse pleasure in deceiving, that he is uncertain and treacherous, with a dull conscience and morbid impulses. There are exceptions to this in cases where the drug is easily obtained by the patients. Opium and morphine diminish the sexual appetite in males, even to impotence. The bodily changes are slow but profound. When a user of morphine has been deprived of the drug for from ten to fifteen hours, he becomes so weak he can not stand; he gets diarrhoea with cramps; he sweats, trembles, and collapses. Later, mental disturbance comes on. He grows delirious, sees insects and small animals, as the delirium tremens patient does, and his suffering is very great. It is extremely difficult, and commonly impossible, to cure the morphine disease after it has been firmly established, and a deliberate acceptance of the habit is evidently a grave vice. Where a patient has become addicted to the use of the drug, through the fault of a physician, or through ignorance, the treatment from the social point of view of such a patient is commonly cruel. Cocaine intoxication is much worse than morphinism. It is a new excess, which was unknown before 1886. Many users of morphine can carry on business, but the cocaine _habitué_ can not do so. He is always extremely busy doing nothing. He writes long letters which are never finished. He changes from work to work, and even his conversation wanders. His bodily weight decreases rapidly, even one-third of his whole weight may be lost within a few weeks. The skin hangs in folds and is of a dirty yellow colour, the facial appearance is that of extreme distress, and the muscles are feeble. Fainting, irregular cardiac action, sweating, and insomnia are other symptoms.