Again, a right appreciation of the status of such patients will lessen the labors of the doctor and the lawyer in their legal aspect, and remove the risk of failure to determine the true physical condition of the habitué where the question of narcotic taking is the leading issue in the case. To illustrate. Granting a general acceptance of my assertion that the class to which this paper pertains are the subjects of a disturbed organism, beyond their control, and for which they are blameless; and granting an appreciation of this belief by the patients themselves, then their main motive for concealment will be removed, and no more reason for untruth exist than if they were the victims of any other functional disease. Again, the present general opinion of these patients is such that once a case comes into court to settle the question of an opiate using, the defendant, desirous of protecting himself, by denying his drug taking, makes it essential that evidence be secured to disprove his statement, and if certain signs be wanting, the habitué may quite outwit the medical expert. The writer noted a case of this sort last summer. A lady, cultured and refined, who had fallen a victim to morphia years before, and who was party to a suit in court, was examined by two well-known female physicians of this city, who, failing to apply the one infallible test of an opiate using, testified that she was not an habitué. They were mistaken—the lady was taking morphia, though she has since recovered. The point involved, to spare the chagrin of such an error, is obvious. Lastly, what is the trend of a more rational view of this question as regards the treatment of these cases? Reference has been made to the statement that “no morphia habitué can be depended on to tell the truth”—a statement so often at variance with the fact that it must be the outcome of an experience with the baser class of cases—and I submit the wrong of regarding _all_ as liars because _some_ fail to tell the truth; or, added evidence of the “cruelty of ignorance;” or, an unwarranted libel on a worthy class of unfortunates, who, Heaven knows, have enough to bear without loading them with the reproach such an injustice implies. Nevertheless it is just such an opinion, and consequent lack of confidence in the honor of these patients that influences their management by some medical men. Looked upon as the victims of their own wrong-doing, or as unworthy the sympathy that should ever exist between physician and patient, or treated on the erroneous belief that such is the only proper method, they are consigned to the brutal ordeal of abrupt and entire opiate disusing, which, while it may end in the desired result, entails such suffering of mind and body as to be utterly inexcusable—because a more humane method will avail—except under conditions peculiar and beyond control.