Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 January 1881 — Opium Drunkards. [ARTICLE]

Opium Drunkards.

The public were shocked, not long since, by the account of the death of a lady, the daughter of one of the most eminent professional men in the country, from an overdose of morphine. The wretched story was published all over the country. There is no impropriety, therefore, in our pointing the young girls who are our readers to its meaning. The woman was young and beautiful. She had high culture, and was by nature gentle, and lovable. A few years ago she began io, take opium for some disease, and soon became its victim. All her struggles against it were in vain. At an age when She should have been in the full vigor M os her womanhood, a happy and retired wife and mother, she died alone, and her downfall and disgrace were Blazoned in every city of the Union. Opium drunkenness is said to be on the increase in this country, and it prevails largely among women. Very few matrons or young ladies, when suffering from weakness or nervous disorders, would resort to brandy or whisky. But a dose of laudanum, or some other anodyne, they regard as harmless. Physicians too, heedlessly prescribe something which they vaguely call “drops” to an overworked mother, or young girl exhausted by incessant dancing aud flirting, when the proper remedies would be a few weeks' rest from labor and care, and a more wholesome, rational life. American women are, as rule, energetic. The busy housekeeper and the eager belle, find resort to a seemingly innocent little black bottle, when they are “run down,” much easier than the giving up of work, or the sacrifice of balls and germans. Before they are conscious of their danger, they are victims to the most hopeless and terrible of appetites—they are opium drunkards. It is probable that no one who has ever become addicted to this habit has been able to conquer it. De Quincy wrote a book that for dramatic horror and pathos, has not its like in literature, to prove that it was possible to rise “out of the deep;” but he sank again, helpless and hopeless. The best monograph on the opium habit written in America, was the work of a brilliant man of letters who believed himself cured, yet died its victim. Most of our readers can recall at least one opium drunkard whom they have known. The livid, corpse-like skin, the glassy eye, the vague air of terror, are unmistakable. They are signs that the nightmare, life in death, has seized its prey, and is dragging it surely down to the grave.— Youth s Companion.