The majority of narcotic addicts, however, and especially those developing previous to the activities of the past few years, present a very different history. Mentally and morally they are of the same average equipment as other people. They form a class which might be called “accidental or innocent” addiction-disease sufferers. They had no voice nor conscious part in the early administration of opiate, realizing no desire or need for it by name, but only wishing for the unknown medicine which relieved their sufferings. Very many addiction patients have received their first knowledge of opiate administration in the withdrawal symptoms which followed the attempted discontinuance of its use. There is in these sufferers no element of lack of will-power; no trace of desire to indulge appetite or to pander to sensuous gratification. In some, before their condition was recognized, their tolerance for or dependence upon opiate had proceeded to a point where their bodies’ demand for morphine was imperative and their withdrawal suffering unendurable. In others, before body need was completely established--with their stamina and nervous resistance below par from sickness and suffering--they have been unable to forego opiate’s supportive and sedative and pain-relieving action, or to endure the nervous and other symptoms attendant upon its withdrawal after even a brief period of administration. As to what the addict is;--the tendency and effect of legislative, administrative, police and penological activities in general have been to place the sufferer from addiction-disease in the position of the criminal and vicious. The tendency of the psychologist and psychiatrist is to analyze him from the viewpoint of mental weakness, defect or degeneration, and to so classify and regard him. The average practitioner of internal medicine, and even the recognized leaders and authorities in this field of medical science will tell you that narcotic drug addiction is a condition to which they have given but little attention and have no clean-cut ideas of its physical disease problems. The addict himself, whose testimony has been all too little consulted or sought, will tell you that he is sick with some kind of a physical condition which causes suffering and incapacity whenever a sufficient amount of narcotic is not administered. In the above attitudes and statements the administrative, police and penological authorities are right in some cases;--the psychologists and psychiatrists have good basis for their opinions in some cases;--the addict has physical grounds for his statement in all cases--he is always sick, sick with addiction-disease.