Some factor or element of great and fundamental importance has obviously been neglected. This lacking element is general recognition of the presence of disease processes which cause the symptomatology and phenomena of body-need for opiate drug. One of the essentials for the practical solution and management of the narcotic drug problem is the realization by the medical profession, legislators, administrators and laity that opiate drug addiction is a definite disease entity, to be treated as such, and calling for extensive clinical and laboratory investigation and study such as have been accorded other diseases over which we have gained the mastery. One of the most needed achievements in the line of practical remedy is the admission of narcotic drug addiction-disease to its legitimate place as an accepted part of the practice of internal medicine and the stimulating of education concerning it among medical practitioners, medical students and nurses. As was stated in the last chapter, too much emphasis has been placed on drug use and drug withdrawal, as if the drug itself were the most important element in the clinical picture of addiction. In the handling and treatment of addiction-disease it should be constantly borne in mind that the ultimate withdrawal of opiate from the addict is simply one stage, and not by any means the most important consideration in his rational handling. Its management in most cases is a matter of scientific clinical certainty and satisfactory accomplishment by the physician who understands the disease he is treating and who is clinically proficient in the control of its elements by indicated therapeutic procedure. The ease of handling the stage of final withdrawal, the extent to which suffering, nervous strain and exhaustion can be avoided in it, and its final issue depend greatly upon the physical and reactive condition of the man from whom drug is withdrawn. Like the stage of crisis in pneumonia, its course and conduct and results are largely influenced by the condition in which the patient approaches the withdrawal. It is of vastly more importance to measure and control reactions and treat a patient so as to get him into the fittest possible condition for final withdrawal and rapid convalescence, than it is to focus attention on the mere reduction or withdrawal of drug, or on the mere amount of drug used. Final withdrawal of drug, like an operation of election, is to be done when the patient is in the fittest condition and ready for it. With the addict who is well nourished, non-inhibited, and physically and glandularly reactive, it can be accomplished with little or no discomfort, in a very short time, leaving practically nothing to demand a protracted and difficult stage of convalescence or of so-called “after care.”