The narcotic addict of this type presents primarily and fundamentally a purely medical problem. Competent and complete arrest of the physical mechanism of narcotic drug need permanently removes him from the ranks of the narcotic drug user. The problem of his handling is one falling within the province of medical practice. His care is purely and simply a matter of the treatment of disease with medical intelligence and judgment on the established lines of medical practice in disease conditions generally. His after-care is simply such management of convalescence as is needed in ordinary medical cases. The length of his convalescence will depend entirely, just as in other diseases, upon the competency and intelligence of his medical handling and upon his physical condition, reaction, and recuperative ability. For such a man custodial care and institutional handling under conditions of enforced restraint are undesirable and harmful. His withdrawal from self-supporting citizenship should be for the shortest time commensurate with adequate therapeutic results. He should be restored to normal personal, social, and economic environment and activity at as early a time as possible following his clinical treatment and the arrest of his physical mechanism of addiction-disease. Given intelligent clinical handling, with rational therapeutic treatment, and a comprehensive meeting of the indications of disease in his case, he is no more a subject for unusual restraint and custodial care than is a case of malaria or pneumonia or other medical condition. He is in most cases a clinically curable medical case. He presents the true picture of addiction-disease uncomplicated by the distracting and confusing incidentals often met with in the types of cases more commonly discussed. The development of addiction in a case of this type is a purely physical matter, and is the addiction which should be considered in the fundamental comprehension of basic facts. _Stages of Addiction Development_ Every case of well-developed addiction has followed in its development a course through several stages, definitely marked by clinical signs and reaction phenomena. I shall not exhaustively discuss all of these stages and their phenomena. The ones I shall mention will be recognized by most of those who have gone through them or have watched them develop. 1. _Stage of Normal Reaction to Therapeutic and Toxic Doses._ The manifestations of this state in morphine administration for example are more fully described in our text-books of materia medica than I can take space for in this book, and are familiar to all physicians. The narcotic and analgesic effect with therapeutic doses; the euphoric and inhibitory action of doses in excess of the therapeutic; the toxic action manifested by the slowed pulse, slowed respiration, and generally arrested metabolism and function are too familiar to need elaboration. 2. _Stage of Increased Tolerance._