Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 September 1881 — The Opium Habit. [ARTICLE]

The Opium Habit.

The use of opium has been greatly increased in this country within the past few years. The Catholic World gives some statistics of the trade in Albany, N. Y., which show that twenty-five years ago that city, with a population of 57,000, consumed annually 350 pounds of opium and 375 ounces of morphia. Now, with a population of 91,000, the quantity of opium sold is 3,500 pounds, and 5,500 ources of morphia. The deductions are that, while the city has increased 39 per cent., the sale of the drug has increased 900 per cent. In Bavaria medical men are shorter lived than any other class. Out of every 100 individuals, 53 Protestant clergymen, 41 professors, 39 lawyers or magistrates, 34 Catholic priests, but only 26 doctors reach the age of 50.