COCAINE, THE NEW DRUG. —'♦

Grey River Argus, Volume XXXI, Issue 5304, 26 September 1885, Page 1 (Supplement)

COCAINE, THE NEW DRUG. — ' ♦

MELANCHOLIA AND ALCOHOLISM CURED. [ST. LOUIS GLOBE.] THE TERRIBLE RESULTS OF ITS TOO FREQUENT USE. The discovery of the beneficent possibilities in the hydrochlorate of cocaine has induced numerous experiments among physicians and specialists to find its real limitations. These experiments have I widened to a wonderful extent the field [ in 'which he d ug can be used, and hve I demonstrated too where its use should be j abandoned. One of the most untiring of J the experimentalists in this line has been Dr Jerome K. Bauduy, who in January. 18S 1-, began using the drug in cases of alcoholism with good effect. The first of the present year-he began an entirely new line of experiments on the patients in St. Vincent'a insane asylum, and during the five or six months has expended possibly 82,000 in purc'msing the drug. The results of these investigations have been embodied by him in a paper read betore the Neurological society, which met in New York June I.7th. Several . attempts have beeu made to obtain, by interviews, some idea of the scope and value of his study, but these have been met with persi tent denial, as, according to the ethics of the society, the paper and its contents belong to that body, and not to the public. But one who has been intimately associated with the experiments at St. Vincent's, and is not bound by oaths or otherwise, furnished the information from notes of the several cases. ITS EFFECTS IX MELANCHOLIA. The prime use of the drug seems to be in melancholia, which in its suicidal forms has been reduced with remarkable ease and rapidity. One of the most marked coses noted at the asylum was that of an army officer, whose melancholy was so pronounced that his constant desire was for self-destruction. To avoid such catastrophe he was strapped to' his bed and guarded. Previous to the use of cocaine he had not taken food for 60 hours, and it was feared he would die of inanition. One grain of the drug was injected hypodermically. The effect, as is usual, was instantaneous. Shortly afterwards he asked for food, and in three quarters of an hour had so improved th 't he dressed himself and walked out of the ward. The melancholia was for the time entirely gone ; but reappeared in about twelve hours. Another injection reduced the attack, and there were recurring periods of depression about every 12 hours, each of less force than the preceding one, until the minimum was reached, and the' patient cured. However like a fairy table this may seem, it is not the least wonderful, for there are instances of marvellous cures of alcoholism which j ustify an expressed opinion that when the use of the drug shall have become well understood, inebriate asylums will be a thing of the past. A case is cited of a man whose debauches had brought him into the paroxysms of delirium tremens. The magic injection allayed the excitation, and in several hours he was relieved of the hallucinations, and was ready for business. MAKING A B<*AVE MAX A COWARD. Experiments so far have scarcely removed the drug from the realm of the empiric. Certain results are known to follow given doses, but the philosophy of its action is almost a blank patte in the experimental notebook. "A grain injected in the arm of a man who is cowardly," said a physician, "will make him brave. I know one who had been grievously outraged by a business associate. He told a doctor ; ' I know lam a coward, or I would smash that fellow. I wish I had some .courage.' 'I will give you courage,' the 'doctor said, and gave him a grain of cocaine. The injured man iraraediatclo became a lion in daring, and browbeat his aggressor into making an apology-" There are sixteen cases of melancholia now under cocaine treatment at St. Yin- I cent's, which are being watched with the J greatest care as to the effect of the drug ; upon the temperature, upon the action of the heart, etc. The experience has been ; that not a single case has refused to yield i to the treatment. The most prominent of the special effects is nausea, invariably I caused bj the injections. The nausea is violent when the habit of the drug is fixed, but only transitory to the beginner. To escape this effect in a violent form the injection is given several hours before eating. N umerous cases of alcohol- ; ism have been treated at St. Vincent's with the success indicated. A victim who confesses to have been a Blave to that disease for twenty years, and for several years ; had been consigned to the asylum at regu- [ lar intervals, has been in all probability i permanently cured. His own statement j is that he began the treatment three weeks prior to June 10, the day the statement was made. Th«j first injection and several made subsequently seemed to have no effect ; after three or four days he observed a peculiar sensation, not to be described, after each injection. This sensation did not effect the brain, and passed away entirely, and he considered himself cured. CURES HYSTERIA. Hysteria is a disease that has been found in these investigations to give way before the drug, and numerous pronounced cases are to be quoted ; but the most interesting line of the inquiry is the effect upon slaves of the morphia or opium habit. It has been conclusively shown that cocaine is the antidote for opium, and it is held, with slighter ground for the belief, that each is a counteracting agent on the other. Many cases of opium habit have been treated, all yielding readily. The number of doses that are needed to cause a thorough distaste for opium is not high. But in the cure by this means there has been developed a cocaine habit more violent and distressing than the malady displaced. This has followed incautious use of the drug in the cure of alcoholism also. It is a favorite expression of Dr Bauduy that the opium habit is to- the cocaine habit what the acorn is to the oak, and, too, the drug is the most terrible it has been the misfortune of man to abuse.

His associate told of a case which has as yet yielded to no treatment. A man with some slight knowledge of medicine had become subject to the opium habit, and learning that cocaine had been found to be a specific for the malady he began hypodermic injections of one grain each day. The stronger drug supplanted the opium in a very short time, and, not realising or not dreading his danger, he increased and continued his doses beyond any reasonable limit. He was advised to use morphia freely, but could not be brought to it, the cocaine having induced a repugnance to its use that could not he overcome. He persists in the use of cocaine, and a cure seems doubtful. His case is considered valuable to the students in this field, whose experiences have not been of much importance in connectioa with other cases. THE CONSEQUENCES OF ITS RASH USE. While a person in normal health is exhilirated by the use of the drug to such an extent that natural cowardice is supplanted by the greatest daring, the slave to the drug, though previous to his inthrallment the bravest of men, becomes the most arrant coward. He will not sleep, except at long intervals, but never loses his appetite, eating heartily as soon as the nausea induced by the injection passes off. No mental faculties are clouded or dulled, but. owing to. extreme ' constipation, the victim is a prey to lethargy, and will not undertake great labor or enterprise, becomes untidy in person, unclean in thought, and morally .depraved. Some victims have continued their employments, but, on account of. their aversion to action, with great diminution of success. Opium, other narcotic and intoxicants used to excess,, cause persons to become absolutely indifferent to all relations, duties and obligations ; they even become brutal or depraved as the cocaine slaves. Besides this effect in the examination of the scalp of the medical man mentioned, it was found that the use of the drug caused a phenomenon never observed before as the result of any ail- , ment or drug. Bony . lumps will form ; upon the scalp, which, if pressed by the the finger, will disappear, leaving, where . the finger pressed, a loose scale or scab as \ the only evidence of the presence of anything unusual ; if punctrued by a hypodermic needle a small amount of watery substance exudes. An effort made to trace the contents of the lump as it disappears under pressure will be as unavailing as the endeavor to catch the globule of mercury with the thumb and forefinger. It runs along under the scalp, now this way, now that, until in an unguarded moment it is gone entirely. Rubbing these spots after the contents have been pushed away a dry, grating sound is distinctly heard, as if a piece of dessicated scalp was being rubbed against the dry bone. The victim does not sleep nor care to so long as the drug affects him ; he will lie awake happy in his insomnia, seeing everything about him, and yet exhilarated to a wonderful drgree. Halluciuations come with night, not of the pleasant order usually ascribed to opium, but ghastly and horrible phantoms to be chased away only by light. These imaginary beings creep in through the cracks in the door and every other entrance conceivable to the diseased mind. Such periods are as terrible as the paroxysms of delirium tremens. These results of the inquiries are just sufficient to excite the liveliest interest in experiments, and with their continuation medical literature will be in the coming year greatly enriched.