In my own work, and as a result of my own experience I have found that as a rule the extent to which an intelligent addiction patient cooperates with me has been a measure of the understanding and technical ability with which I handled him, rather than a measure of his desire to be helped. It is held by many that a majority of addiction-patients are not possessed of average intelligence and are not honest in their statements. I will simply say that even in the Alcoholic and Prison Wards of Bellevue and in the narcotic wards of the New York Workhouse Hospital I came more and more to seek in faults of medical and nursing handling the explanation of apparent lack of cooperation. In the Annual Report of the New York Department of Correction for 1915, in commenting upon the work of the narcotic wards, is stated, “In ratio as there has been at any given time among our interne and nursing staff comprehension and understanding of the manifestations and underlying principles of narcotic drug addiction-disease and of its rational handling in the individual case, our results have been good or bad.” Several years ago I wrote as follows: “As to the existing opinion that the morphinist does not want to be cured and that while under treatment he cannot be trusted and will not cooperate but will secretly secure and use his drug, I can only quote from personal experience with these cases. During my early attempts, my patients, beginning with the best intentions in the world, often tried to beg, steal or get in any possible way, the drug of their addiction. Like others I placed the blame upon their supposed weakness of will and lack of determination to get rid of their malady. Later I realized the fact that the blame rested entirely upon the shoulders of my medical inefficiency and my lack of understanding and ability to observe and interpret my patient’s condition. The morphinist as a rule will cooperate and will suffer to the limit of his endurance. Demanding cooperation of a case of morphinism during and following incompetent withdrawal of the drug is much like asking a man to cooperate for an indefinite period in his own torture. There is a limit to every one’s power of endurance of suffering.” Of primary importance, then, if a physician, institutional or practitioner, is to have any success in handling a case of opiate addiction-disease, is his attitude towards his patient--divesting himself of all conception of habit, appetite or vice as explanation of characteristic physical manifestations and symptomatology, and approaching the patient as a man with a definite disease requiring and deserving intelligent clinical handling. The patient will be the very first to mark a physician’s shortcomings. If he has not confidence in the doctor’s ability and understanding of his illness the doctor can help him but little. This statement applies not to addiction-disease alone but to every medical condition.