The narcotic drug problem / by Ernest S. Bishop.

  • Bishop, Ernest S. (Ernest Simons), 1876-1927.
Date:
[1920], ©1920
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The narcotic drug problem / by Ernest S. Bishop. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    to those wards. Wlien I left the service after sixteen months of day and night observation, with personal over¬ sight and attempt to care for in the neighborhood of a thousand admissions a month, my early and faulty concep¬ tion of narcotic addicts was replaced by a settled convic¬ tion that these cases were primarily medical problems. I realized that these patients were people sick of a definite disease condition, and that until we recognized, under¬ stood and treated this condition, and removed the stigma of mental and moral taint from those cases in which it did not exist, we should make little headway towards solu¬ tion of the problem of addiction. It is a fact that the narcotic drugs may afford pleas¬ urable sensations to some of those not yet fully addicted to them, and that this effect has been sought by the ment¬ ally and morally inferior purely for its enjoyment for the same reasons and in the same spirit that individuals of this type tend to yield themselves to morbid impulses, curiosities, excesses and indulgences. Experience does not teach them intelligence in the management of opiate addiction and they tend to complicate it with cocaine and other indulgence, increasing their irresponsibility and conducing to their earlier self-elimination. Wide and varied experience, however, hospital and private, with careful analysis of history of development, and consideration of the individual case, demonstrates the fact that a majority of narcotic addicts do not belong tQ this last described type of individuals. It will be found upon careful examination that they are average individuals in their mental and moral fundamentals. .Among them are many men and women of high ideals and worthy ac¬ complishments, whose knowledge of narcotic administra¬ tion was first gained by u withdrawal ” agonies following cessation of medication, who have never experienced pleas¬ ure from narcotic drug, are normal mentally and morally, and unquestionably victims of a purely physical affliction.