Many of these victims date their downfall from some sickness in which
a physician prescribed the drug--perhaps to allay pain or produce
sleep. When they recovered they found they still had to have it. The
habit grew and finally fastened itself with such a deathlike grip
that they were unable to shake it off, and so they totter through
life, unfitted for anything except to beg, borrow or lend some of the
dope. Men and women once high in the business and social world are
frequently found in the police dock accused of some petty theft in
order to satisfy their craving for these destructive drugs.
Chicago has its quota of doctors who "cure" the morphine habit, but
always in the way that "Dr." C---- did. Most of them are "fiends"
themselves who eke out a living selling the drug to other victims in
the form of a "cure." If by any chance you have contracted the habit
steer clear of all so-called cures. The remedy is worse than the
disease.