A common feature of all narcotic in ebriety is the frequent perversion of the affections. Love is transformed into hate, and the narcomaniac not unseldom loathes the sight of the devoted com panion whom, in his prenarcotic years, lie cherished with the tenderest affection. Opium transforms the manly, high toned, pleasant companion into an effeminate, driveling, querulous bore.
In some localities, especially in China, the opirun degradation is so terrible that gross immorality abounds. So intense is the crave that a man has been known to mortgage his mother and sell his wife to gratify it. Onc man sold his wife for £12, and smoked the proceeds. This crave robs a man of his resources, unfits him for work, and hurries him to an untimely end.
To opium is due a large percentage of mortality among children: crime, murder, and disease. More than three-fourths of 13etween SOO and 900 prisoners in Jeypore t'‘ntial Prison used °phut), quite one-half ot them to excess. Valentine (Indian Med. G.iz...liine, '91).
One hundred thousand persons commit .:micide by opium every year in China. J. 1.. 31:txnell tl..aneet, Jan. 28, '93).
In Ilardoi. of ISO suicides in three t Ars. 97 N‘cre from opium, SO per cent. oi these being women. .Melleddie (Lan tt t, Jan. :1S. '93).
Morphine produces abulic states, which redispose to imperative conceptions, ding to theft. usually of a senseless type. J. G. Kiernan (Jour. of the Amer.
ki. Assoc.. Dec. 11, '97).
Diagnosis and Complications. — Al th.ugh it has often been asserted that tbe opium-slave is easily recognized by his clazed eye, hollow cheeks, wasted f ra me : dry, parchment-like skin; ful habit, and livid countenance, the L.piomaniac and morphinomaniac are oftvn difficult of detection, if they have a supply of the drug about them.
[In one case. a brilliant young medical student had habitually taken opium for two years without the habit having leen suspected by the chum who shared his rooms. The truth was disclosed un expectedly, owing, to an unusually large dose having been taken by mistake. It astonishing how dextrous with the hypodermic syringe the inebriate be comes. I have seen a body speckled all over, except on the head, face, and neck, ith minute, dark, indurated spots, though usually the thighs are the favor ite injecting field. NORMAN KERR.] The diagnosis of morpliinism is easy. On examining the arms, scars caused by the use of the hypodermic syringe are readily seen. Hale White (Guy's Hosp.
Caz.. Mar. 19. '9-3).
Case in a physician who had a marked albuminuria, absolute anorexia, and ob- -tinate constipation. The skin was pig„ mented dark brown and the patient de fermed. the entire body leaning- to the right. this being the result of infiltration ri the abdominal parietes by an inflam matory process. There were also innu merable abscesses in the skin. Gradual withdrawal of the drug resulted in cure.
M. Paul Sollier (Le Progres Med., May 12, 1900).
111 quite a number of cases of opiate inebriety I have noted that a spell of inebriate indulgence is invariably accom panied by severe persistent pain in the epigastric region, yielding after. a few days of abstinence. So characteristic has this pain been that I have been en abled thereby to diagnose secret inebriety of both forms.
Symptoms resembling ague are occa sionally seen, in both the presence and absence of the narcotic. There are high temperature and shivering, like the cold and hot stages of intermittent fever. There is also an opiate and morphine trembling delirium, exclusive of the acute wakeful and trembling delirious state supervening on sudden withdrawal.
Chronic dysentery is a frequent com plication in confirmed opiomania. Dys peptic and neuralgic painful troubles are among the most common ailments, thus provocative of, or intercurrent with, opiomania. A harassing cough is an oc casional complication.
Evanescent albuminuria at times oc curs, during the exhibition of the drug and also after its discontinuance. It is apt to last for a few days at a time and to recur at intervals.
Permanent alburninuria may develop under prolonged abuse of morphine. Huchard (La Sem. May 14, '90).
Two cases of opium-eaters, each taking more than 4 drachms of the drug daily. who suffered from albuminuria. Hingoli (Indian Med. Record, Apr., '92).
Cirrhotic and nephritic disorders are infrequently seen with opium. It is al m.ost a tradition of the medical world that disease of the kidneys is apt to occur in the person of morphinomaniacs and opiomaniacs; but, though I have always been expecting to discover albruninuria in this group of narcomaniacs, T have never yet detected albumin in their urine, except when the kidneys were affected with organic kidney disease prior to the development of the narcotic symp toms.