The action of medicines in the system, or, On the mode in which therapeutic agents introduced into the stomache produce their peculiar effects on the animal economy : being the prize essay to which the Medical Society of London awarded the Fothergillian Gold Medal for MDCCCLII / by Frederick William Headland.

  • Headland, Frederick William.
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The action of medicines in the system, or, On the mode in which therapeutic agents introduced into the stomache produce their peculiar effects on the animal economy : being the prize essay to which the Medical Society of London awarded the Fothergillian Gold Medal for MDCCCLII / by Frederick William Headland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Opium which always contained the same amount of Morphia, it would perhaps be better to use the alkaloid as naturally combined, in all cases. The consumption of Opium annually is no doubt on the increase with us. Some exaggeration has been caused by reckoning up the whole amount that passes through our ports. Taking only the quantity that is returned for home consumption, we find that from 1831-41, the ave- rage was about 35,000 lbs., but in 1853 it reached the sum of 62,500 lbs. If various sources of information, comprising the testimony of medical men and dealers in drugs, can be at all depended on in this matter, I fear there is no escape from the melancholy conclusion that this increased consumption is in large part owing to the growth of the pernicious practice of Opium eating, among the lower classes especially. Driven to it in time of want, to allay the cravings of hunger, or drown the gnawing sensation produced by enforced abstinence from spirituous liquors, or impelled thereto by the belief that it tends to strengthen the frame against the influence of a damp and unwholesome climate, the operative in the manufacturing districts, or the field-labourer in Lin- colnshire, resorts at once to Opium, and is thenceforth riveted for life to the fascinating but baleful drug. Moreover, every year a larger pro- portion of Opium is abstracted from its legitimate uses, in order to enter into the composition of those various detestable compounds, with which, under the names of Godfrey’s Cordial, Dalby’s Carminative, Soothing Syrup, etc., mothers, whose pitiable ignorance must serve for their plea, are suffered to stupefy and poison their helpless babes. And the Govern- ment has not interfered, and will not interfere to stop this. Most wisely has the sale of Arsenic been restricted by law. But any one may buy Opium. The recorded deaths from suicide and murder, which result from its unrestricted sale, are increasing in a frightful ratio. Opium-eating, to an enormous extent, has been long practised in the East. The drug is resorted to on account of the pleasurable sensations which result from it. The mental faculties are said to be enlarged; a state of mind is felt which is described as perfect happiness; the ordinary capacities of enjoyment are refined and amplified. Dreams and hallu- cinations of a wondrous but agreeable kind present themselves to the thinker—but there is no intoxication like that produced by alcohol. To his friends, the Opium-eater may seem a grave, silent, and abstracted person, or his flow of conversation and expression of bis ideas to others may be more remarkable and more vivid than theirs. At length he sleeps, still dreaming; sleeps long; and when awoke, still feels drowsy. Now his head aches, his frame is unusually weary, his tongue is coated, his appetite gone, his eyes dull and listless; he longs to sleep again. Soon there comes a depression and misery of mind which is described as intense. To cure this the wretched man knows but one way. Death