Morphiomania – An Addiction, Must Have Morphine or Opium

1878

Morphiomania

Morphiomania has become a great scourge in Berlin since the introduction of opium injections as a relief from bodily suffering and sleeplessness.

Tradespeople, merchants, judges, barristers, soldiers, students, doctors and clergymen become the victims of the habit, and when the medical attendants are called in it is too late to counteract the evil.

At first, these subcutaneous injections offer the quickest and easiest means to allay pain and bring rest to the sufferer. But to prove effectual in its cure, the treatment must be continued for a certain time; and during that period the patient becomes so accustomed to these skin injections that they become indispensable. When the medical practitioner refuses to increase the doses, the patient unable to sleep or rest without the calming injection, procures the necessary instruments and applies the remedy himself.

Sometimes, also, even after the patient has been cured without any undue doses, and when he should dispense with the opium injections, he delays doing so under the plea that they make sleep and rest so well. In fact, when once these subcutaneous injections have begun, they can rarely be left off. Like drink, the appetite for them increases until chronic drunkenness ensues.