Drugs that enslave : The opium, morphine, chloral and hashisch habits / By H.H. Kane.

  • Kane, H. H. (Harry Hubbell), 1854-
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Drugs that enslave : The opium, morphine, chloral and hashisch habits / By H.H. Kane. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

    37/238 (page 37)
    absence of bile in the intestinal canal allows of decompo- sition of the food, with the production of ill-smelling gases which regurgitate through the stomach, or pass by the bowels. Constipation is the rule. Sometimes it alternates with severe diarrhoea. In one patient whom I saw, the faeces collected day by day in the bowels, until impaction resulted and the mass was removed, with the greatest diffi- culty, by means of large enemata and the handle of a spoon. This lady had been using the drug, crude opium, for only eight months. This constipation from hardened condition of the faeces produces irritation, intestinal catarrh, and often hemorrhoids accompanied by an eczematous eruption about the anus. Heartburn, not from an excess of gastric juice, as is so often supposed, but from an acid fermentation of the food, is not an uncommon symptom. Some patients go on for years with no disturbance of the bowels, liver and stomach, beyond a slight catarrh and some jaundice, but these troubles are sure to come sooner or later. In many instances as the appetite for food decreases the appetite for alcoholic stimulants replaces it. A young lady, of twenty, formerly a patient of mine, after using the drug subcutaneously for three years, lost her appetite and subsisted for nearly eight months upon lager beer, a few crackers and a little toast. She would consume about one gallon of beer a day. During this time she somewhat diminished the amount of morphine used (eight grains, dropped to six grains, in twenty-four hours) and gained in weight and health. At the end of this time, however, severe gastric disturbance supervened, and she lay for months in a precarious condition. She is now cured of the habit.