Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 August 1889 — ONE OPIUM-EATER CURED. [ARTICLE]

ONE OPIUM-EATER CURED.

But It Took a Term In Sintr Slog and Endless Agony-to Do it. A confirmed opium-smoker was recently asked, says the New York; Sun, whether he ever knew a. person who had been cured of the habit “Only once,” he replied, “and them It wasn’t a voluntary cure by any! moans. He was a man about 35 years, old, who had been a slave to the habit for fifteen years. He was so given up to it that his business went to smash and he used to resort to all manner of things in order to get money to purchase a ‘shell.’ He used to crave eight shells or $2 worth of opium a day, and I have frequently met him in a joint that was run by two tough Chinamen oa Marion street offering to roll for smokers in order to share their opium. One day he had been without a smoke for about seven hours, and he became so desperate that he tried to rob the till in a grocery store. He was detected and arrested. He got word down to the joint telling of his misfortune, and begging for God’s sake that sombody would send him some opium. I bought some dry opium pills and got them in to him after a deal of trouble. The next day I called on him, and a more miserable wretch I never saw. He was doubled up with cramps in the etomach, and the inevitable pain between the shoulders, which feels as though somebody was driving spikes into your flesh, was racking him. These tortures jjfgre joined to severe pains in all the joints, as though the limbs were decay- ' ing and would soon drop off. He had been without opium so long that he was fairly famishing, and the small quantity x>f the drug I had been able tc send was disposed of in short order. “There isn’t a taste of it left,’ he yelled to me as I entered his cell in the Tombs. Then he rolled his tongue around as though searching for any small particles that might be hidden away in a tooth. I gave him the pills I had brought. He seized them like a starving man would seize a crust of bread. He placed two of them in his mouth and rolled them around until they had dissolved and then washed them down with a mouthful of water. In a few minutes he was lying on his cot as placid and happy as a healthy baby. I kept him supplied with opium: until he was tried and sentenced. I managed to slip a few of them into his hand as he was on his way to Sing Sing. I heard no more of him and forgot all about him until one day on Broadway, several years later, a stalwart, rosy cheeked fellow slapped me on the shoulder and heartily shook me by the hand. I was nearly surprised into a fit when he explained that he was the opium fiend of a few years ago. He said that when he got to Sing Sing tho habit was on him very strong. The pills 1 had given him had crumbled to dust in his pocket and had become so mixed up with a lot of other stuff that! ho could not use them. He was in a raging torment that night and cried for the drug. The keepers found him,’ and the prison physician who was call-, od fortunately diagnosed the case correctly. It wasn’t to him, however, for every feature of the man’s face and every motion of his body almost proclaimed him an opium » fiend. He was removed to the hospital and the physician was kind enough tq get interested in the case. He braced him up with hypodermic injections of morphine every time the craving came on, and by a liberal use of this drug

finally wore away the desire for the other. Of course this treatment created the morphine habit, but this was mqre I'eadily cured and my friend soon lost all desire for drugs of ar.y kind, and is a prosperous, lmppy man to-day. If he had not been arrested ho *ould certainly have gone the way of all the fiends, and have ended his life himself or died miserably in some hole. Ho tried to reason the case with me in hopes that I would surrender the drug and enduro the agonies that such a privation would produce for the pleasures attending the feeling that I was no longer a slave to it. I have heard aIL of those arguments a thousand times and frequently I have lain in a joint with another smoker and we have both sworn off and the very next day we would both be in the same place again. lam getting worse every year. The habit is growing more expensive and the longer I am at it the less disposed do I feel for work of any kind. My memory is failing me now and I nni already pretty well along on the downward road. I’ll go a little further down and then good-by to everything.”