Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 August 1890 — IT’S ONLY A LITTLE NEEDLE [ARTICLE]

IT’S ONLY A LITTLE NEEDLE

But Oh! How Happy It Makes Morphine i lend a Thirty thousand a year would be a low estimate of the number of hypodermic syringes manufactured and sold in New York to supply the demands of the morphine fiends. The sale of these syringes is not now confined to drag stores and shops for the sale of surgical instruments, as was the case formerly. They can now be purchased freely stores, dry goods stores where übina and other household articles are kept, house furnishing stores and, in fact, in nearly every kind of store patronized by women. There is no law against their free sale. There is a law against the sale of morphine, yet there is little difficulty in purchasing all that one requires. So prevalent has become this habit of indulgence in morphine by hypodermic injection, that a “morphine set" or “lay out" has been invented. When closed it looks like a morocco card case or a nickel match box, or some innocent thing of that kind. Touch the spring and the lid flies open and you have your syringe, a needle or two, a couple of small vials containing the solution, and there you are with the means to lift you to the seventh heaven of delight for the time being, but only to drop to the seventh circle of hell in a l.ttle while unless you lepeat the dose. The needle is mo>t minute, being only a little larger than the proboscis of a fly, so delicate that fluids thin as water can barely pas 3 through, and very slowly. This, in the hands of a person of ordinary skill, can be passed through the coats of the skin into the cellular tissue without any pain whatever, In preparing the morphia in liquid form for use by this needle, the solution is filtered to reduce it to the flowing fineness required to pass through. This will carry a solution of 20 grains of the sulphate of morphia to one ounce of hot water, which solution will keep for several days or even weeks. Some of these cases are got up in very expensive style, gold or silver mounted and jeweled, but the ordinary ones do not cost more than $lO. Women are fondest of using morphine by hypodermic injection. Taking the drug by mouth is disagreeable, and women’s stomachs are often unable to stand it, They consequently take It by injection. Some women have become so expert that they ctn administer an injection to themselves m public places, such as theatres and churches. A lady sitting down can drop her programme or prayerbook and while stooping on the pretense solely to pick it up can swiftly run the needle, previously charged and prepared, into the muscular part of the limb. The lower limbs are selected by them on which to operate, punctures on the arms spoiling the beauty of these parts on occasions of full dress.