Chapter XXIV: Poison Habits

Opium—Morphine—Chloroform—Ether—Chlorodyne—Cocaine

There is a very peculiar property attached to certain poisons, especially those possessing narcotic properties—that is, they are capable of forming the most enslaving habits known to mankind. Thousands of people to-day are enchained in the slavery of the poison habit in one form or another and very few are ever successful in wresting themselves free when once it has been contracted. The habit is often formed in a most insidious manner. It is usually begun by taking some narcotic drug to relieve pain or induce sleep. In a short time the original dose fails to produce the desired effect, it has to be increased, and afterwards still further increased, until the victim finds he cannot do without it, and an intense craving for the drug is created. By and by the stupefying action affects the brain, the moral character is sapped, and the unfortunate being is at last ready to do anything to obtain a supply of the drug that is now his master.

This is not an overdrawn picture, but one of which instances are constantly to be met with. The enslaving habit of alcohol, when once contracted, is too well known to need description. Opium probably comes next in the point of influence it exerts over its victims, and only a very small percentage ever free themselves from the habit when it is once contracted. In most instances, as stated, it is taken in the first place to relieve some severe pain, as instanced in De Quincey’s case. He says, in his _Confessions of an Opium-Eater_: “It was not for the purpose of creating pleasure, but of mitigating pain in the severest degree, that I first began to use opium as an article of daily diet.” Like others, he was compelled to increase the dose gradually, until at last he consumed the enormous quantity of 320 grains of the drug a day. He graphically describes the struggle he first had to reduce the daily dose, and found that to a certain point it could be reduced with ease, but after that point, further reduction caused intense suffering. However, a crisis arrived, and he writes, “I saw that I must die if I continued the opium. I determined, therefore, if that should be required, to die in throwing it off. I apprehend at this time I was taking from 50 or 60 grains to 150 grains a day. My first task was to reduce it to 40, to 30, and as fast as I could to 12 grains. I triumphed; but think not my sufferings were ended. Think of me, as one, even when four months had passed, still agitated, writhing, throbbing, palpitating, shattered; and much perhaps in the situation of him who has been racked.”

Other cases are commonly met with in this country, where opium-eaters take on an average from 60 to 80 grains of the drug a day. The smallest quantity which has proved fatal in the adult is 4½ grains; in other cases much larger quantities have been taken with impunity. Guy states that recovery once took place after no less than eight ounces of solid opium had been swallowed.

Morphine, the chief alkaloid of opium, is also abused by many, and is swallowed as well as used by hypodermic injection. Its action is very similar to that of opium. It has been recently stated on good authority that in Chicago—that city of hurrying men and restless women—over thirty-five thousand persons habitually take subcutaneous injections of morphine to save themselves from the pains and terrors of neuralgia, insomnia, and nervousness. Dr. Van Dyke has recently stated that “no country suffers more from the narcotic drug evil than the United States. It is estimated that there are more than 1,500,000 addicts, many of them boys and girls.”

To a delicate woman one grain of this drug has proved fatal, yet, under the influence of habit, a young woman has been known to take from 15 to 20 grains daily. A man in a good position, and head of a large commercial house, contracted the habit of taking morphine from a prescription that had been given to him containing four grains of the drug. As the habit grew, he would have the medicine prepared by four different chemists daily, and swallow the contents of each bottle for a dose, until he took on an average over 24 grains a day. This being put a stop to by his friends, he commenced to take chloroform, which he would purchase in small quantities until he had collected a bottleful, and then he would drink it, usually mixed with whisky. He eventually had to be placed under restraint.

A remarkable account of the sensations experienced when under the influence of morphine was recorded by Dr. Albert Herschmann who, after taking six grains of the drug, seated himself at his desk and wrote notes of his sensations as death approached, which were found afterwards.

“This morphine” he wrote, “has put me in a condition of absolute mental painlessness. It is now 7.17 p.m. and if I did not know that I had taken sufficient poison to warrant results, I could not notice it from my condition.

“Aside from fluttering heart action and contracted eye pupils, and moderate drowsiness, I feel no results.

“Still, I cannot make up my mind to swallow the cyanide, and have lit a cigar, awaiting further increase of drowsiness, and hope to be soon able to coax myself into the inevitable.

“7.42 p.m.—I am here yet, hesitating to take this cyanide. My thoughts become blurred from the morphine, and a sensation of supreme quietude reigns in me. If it was not for my beloved wife, who has just ’phoned, I would go on waiting, but I am afraid of too long a delay because a lapsing into unconsciousness might result in my being saved by medical assistance. Ten more minutes, and then the end by cyanide.

“I am in no manner kept in suspense—just pleasantly and curiously watching developments. Queerly enough, my only wish is that I had an additional handkerchief, so that I could dispose of the surplus perspiration, it being close and my skin clammy from the morphine effects.”

Then the signature, “Dr. A. J. H.”

Chloroform when swallowed is very similar in its effects to alcohol, from which it is in fact prepared. It first excites and then causes a condition of stupefaction, and although it does not injure the stomach tissues and the liver to the same extent as alcohol, the taking of it almost invariably ends in death. Some of its victims drink the liquid diluted, and others inhale it.

A case of a well-educated man is recorded who acquired the habit of drinking chloroform. It was known to his friends, and he did not deny it, but no one saw him take it, until it was eventually discovered that he first secretly added it to his whisky bottle, then diluted this mixture with a small quantity of water and swallowed it at a draught. Its property seemed to accentuate the intoxicating power of the alcohol. Every effort was made to break him of the habit, without success, without avail, and he eventually poisoned himself.

Another case of chloroform-drinking occurred in the East End of London. The victim was a young chemist’s assistant, who had been in the habit of taking the drug since he was fourteen years of age. According to his own admission, he did not at first take it to alleviate pain, but began it as an experiment before he had been in his first situation a month. He got beyond the control of his parents, who notified the chemists in the district, and when unable to obtain it there, he called on various medical men and endeavoured to obtain chloroform by false pretences. He was able to swallow considerable quantities, and it was stated that he took enough in an hour to kill six people.

One who was addicted to this terrible habit, states that he began by “inhaling a small quantity, which was followed by a perfectly delicious state of semi-unconsciousness in which one lost sight of all discomfort and all things external. But this state is very transient and passes rapidly. The quantity has to be increased and increased until existence becomes a perfect misery. The whole moral fibre and character is swiftly ruined. Nausea is constant, dyspepsia and kindred troubles follow; and the victim becomes haggard and thin. For the two hours of semi-unconsciousness induced in this way, twenty-two hours are spent in unimaginable misery.”

The quantity of chloroform used by those accustomed to it in this way is said to be astonishing. One victim, a woman, is known to have bought sixteen ounces a day, and inhaled it from a blanket. Such a story sounds incredible, as a teaspoonful is sometimes sufficient to kill a strong person.

Some years ago the habit of taking ether became common, especially in Ireland, Scotland and the eastern parts of England. Its action is similar to chloroform, but it is slower in its effect. It first produces exhilaration, and, as with chloroform, when swallowed mixed with whisky, produces intense excitement, amounting almost to mania. The habit, when formed, is almost more terrible than chloroform, and the victim has to resort to several doses a day.

Some years ago, in the North of Ireland, it was stated on good authority that the population of one large district were almost entirely ether drunkards. Its consumption has now greatly diminished, probably owing to the increase in price which occurred at the time of the war, which would put it out of the reach of many of its victims.

Chlorodyne, which generally contains both morphine and prussic acid in its composition, is also much abused, especially by women. Some women have been known to consume as much as two ounces a week of this preparation.

During the past few years the increase in the taking of cocaine has probably surpassed all other poison habits. Cocaine is an important alkaloid, prepared from the dried leaves of the _Erythroxylon Coca_ and other varieties of the coca plant that grow in the northern parts of Peru and Bolivia. For a considerable period before the active principle was discovered, the leaves of the plant were much used by natives of these countries and travellers, who chewed them on account of their stimulating effect, much the same as tobacco, but it was not until 1860 that the active principle cocaine was discovered by Niemann.

Its chief use in medicine is as a local anæsthetic, especially for the eye. The discovery of this valuable property was due to Eckstein, who, in 1870, pointed out that the most delicate operations could be performed painlessly on the eye after its injection.

The effect of cocaine taken by inhalation, injection or by the mouth unfortunately became too well known. At one time it was largely used as an ingredient in the preparations, used like snuff, commonly recommended and sold for influenza colds. The habit, once induced, led to the use of stronger preparations, until the victim found he had become enchained by a habit that enslaved him to such an extent it would seem impossible to break. More subtle than other poisons, cocaine appears to sap completely the moral strength of its victims. Slowly and surely it deadens the sensibilities until death is sought as a relief in the end.

During the past few years, and since the beginning of the war, the consumption of cocaine in one form or another has enormously increased in both the Eastern and Western hemispheres. Recent cases that have been brought to light in the police courts, show only too plainly the terrible condition to which the victims of this habit are reduced. The cocaine habit may be compared to a human being gradually enclosed in the coils of a serpent, that slowly winds itself round the body with increasing pressure, to the terror of its victim, until it reaches a vital part, which ends in death.

Rarely is there any permanent breaking of the coil when once it starts. In most cases the simple inhalation is the beginning, and in the case of this poison it is not used as much to relieve pain as for the pleasurable sensation that is produced. From inhalation, the victim of the habit, finding the effects weaken, passes to the hypodermic injection, which is more rapid and more powerful in its action. As the coils of the serpent tighten, all moral sense and character seem gradually blotted out, and the whole individual physiologically is altered.

Fatalities have resulted from inhaling cocaine through the nose as well as by injecting it under the skin, and when it is stated that three-quarters of a grain has been known to cause death it can readily be imagined how easily a lethal dose can be taken.

The subtlety of the habit lies in its very simplicity. Exhilaration follows much more rapidly than after alcohol and is followed just as speedily by the deepest depression.

To such an extent has the cocaine habit increased, that recently the Government found it necessary to introduce fresh legislation dealing with the traffic in poisonous narcotic drugs, and the “Dangerous Drugs Act” was passed, and became law in 1920. Stringent though this statute is, it has not stopped the traffic in cocaine and opium. A great amount of smuggling and illicit traffic in the drug is carried on in the underworld of London, Paris and New York, and though the drug is costly, a ready market is found for it. This traffic has been found rife in certain clubs of a low class, conducted by unscrupulous men whose precautions as to secrecy have been ingeniously conceived. The greatest cunning has been exercised in bringing it from the Continent, where it is chiefly manufactured, into Great Britain. A hollow cane containing a glass phial, which, when concealed by a screwed silver top looked like an ordinary walking-stick, was one method discovered a short time ago. Another and still more artful device was discovered by the Custom-House authorities on the landing of a passenger at an East Coast port. As his appearance aroused suspicion a search was made, and he was found to be wearing a truss, the bulb end of which was hollow, and filled with cocaine.

In another case, where a man was arrested in the West End and charged with being in possession of nearly five ounces of cocaine, it was found that he had brought the drug from Germany, and concealed it in cavities he had skilfully cut out in the heels of his shoes, and had afterwards covered with leather.

During the war, which increased the nervous tension of the individual to a hitherto unknown degree, thousands of Canadian and American troops passed through London on their way to and from the fighting fronts, and many of the men provided potential victims for the trafficker in poisons. Many of these men who fell into bad hands were drugged with opium in the form of cigarettes and then robbed.

In proof of this statement, on July 19, 1916, seven men were charged at Marlborough Street Police Court with being concerned in selling cocaine to soldiers. The prosecuting solicitor for the Commissioner of Police said that the evil had grown to such dimensions in London that it was necessary for steps to be taken to check it. The use of cocaine in this country had increased enormously, and the habit appeared to have been brought here with soldiers from across the seas. Since the war began it had been sold in the streets in small boxes each containing a grain; it was offered to soldiers in particular, who were told to use it like ordinary snuff on account of its exhilarating effect. The habit grew and grew till it produced symptoms of intoxication, the moral and physical senses were clouded, and insanity and death resulted. The number of persons engaged in this abominable traffic was very large. The case having been proved against the men by several members of the Military Police, they were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment.

The efforts of the police to stop the traffic revealed the existence of what is practically an organization for the sale of the drug. The chief agents are men, mostly of foreign nationality and the worst possible type. They sell it, often adulterated with boric acid in small quantities, at enormous profit. Women sell it to other women, one acting as a carrier, being in the possession of a number of boxes of the drug, and the other undertaking actually to sell it in single boxes. The price of cocaine sold illegally in the West End of London a year or two ago was at the rate of £10 an ounce, and as it became more difficult to get, owing to the restrictions, the price increased. A bottle containing two and a half ounces was said to have been sold for £100.

In the autumn of 1922 there arrived at Hong-Kong a Japanese steamer, which was boarded by Revenue officers. A passenger who was a Japanese subject was arrested, and a quantity of his belongings, which included four cases of furniture, were seized. On examining the furniture, consisting of two sofas and four arm-chairs, which were cut open, there was found hidden in the upholstery 2,400 ounces of morphine and 2,500 ounces of cocaine. The quantity of morphine concealed in the furniture would provide 2,100,000 maximum doses, according to the _British Pharmacopœia_, and the quantity of cocaine was equal to 4,375,000 doses.

Legislation can play its part, but it will never eradicate the traffic until the supply is stopped at its source. So far as we know, Germany and Switzerland are the chief sources of origin. Nearly all the cocaine sold in London is smuggled into this country either by Chinese or foreigners, and it is stated that before it gets into the hands of the actual victim, quite a number of persons have made substantial profits out of it. In most cases it has been traced to Limehouse and the region of the London Docks or other seaports, where Continental steamers land, on the East Coast, and latterly to some of the big seaports like Cardiff and Newcastle.

These narcotics are rarely alluded to by those who traffic in them by their proper names. As is well known, cocaine is generally alluded to as “snow” or “C”; heroin is “H”; opium is alluded to as “Chandoo” or “Pop.”

Some young women conceive the idea that drug-taking renders them more mysterious and fascinating; indeed, vanity plays a considerable part with many at the beginning, and human curiosity impels the victim to go on. The beginner cannot conceive the after-effect. The entire moral character appears to be sapped and rendered inert, the victims sink down unknown to themselves to the lowest depths of depravity and degradation, all restraint is lost, and they become a prey to those who may use them for any evil purpose at will.

Confirmed drug-takers cannot be cured by persuasion, argument or attempted coercion, but they will have the drug or they will die, and the only way of dealing with them and preventing the drug habit, is to prevent its importation into the country.

Insomnia is a frequent cause of the formation of a poison habit, and for this purpose chloral hydrate is capable of producing more serious results than any other drug of its class. The fact that it accumulates in the system, and that the dose needs constantly to be increased, always renders its use dangerous in unskilled hands. Many gifted men have fallen victims to the habit, among others Dante Rossetti, who seldom was without a bottle of the narcotic near him. Latterly, sulphonal and veronal, drugs derived from coal tar, possessing hypnotic properties, have been largely taken; and antipyrine, also a popular remedy for headache, is capable of forming a pernicious and dangerous habit. The practice of self-dosing with drugs of this description cannot be too strongly deprecated. In all cases they should only be taken when ordered by a medical man.

Some people form a curious habit of taking one drug till at last they become imbued with the idea that that only, and nothing else, will have any effect on them. The only remedy Thomas Carlyle would ever take, according to the late Sir Richard Quain, who was his medical adviser, was “Grey Powder.” “Grey Powder,” he states, “was his favourite remedy when he had that wretched dyspepsia from which he suffered, and which was fully accounted for by the fact that he was particularly fond of very nasty gingerbread. Many times I have seen him, sitting in the chimney corner, smoking a clay pipe and eating this gingerbread.” Oliver Goldsmith also laboured under the confirmed belief that the only medicine that would have any effect on him was “James’ Powder.” He doctored himself with this favourite nostrum whenever he felt unwell, and believed it to be a cure for all his ills.