MORPHIA.
Morphia, which is the active principle of opium, is interesting in its
being the first “alkaloid” to be discovered. Its basic nature was first
noticed by Serturner in 1816.
As a medicine, principally as an anodyne, morphia is to pharmacy what
chloroform is to surgery, and, as a “boon and blessing” to man in that
character, it is second to none. But like all good things in this world,
it has become the object of the grossest abuse at the hand of man; and
its devotees, in an euphonic sense, number hundreds of thousands.
Morphia is a narcotic; that is, it “has the power to produce lethargy or
stupor which may pass into a state of profound coma or unconsciousness,
along with complete paralysis, terminating in death.” The degree of
insensibility depends upon the strength of the dose; one-sixth of a
grain for an adult man, and one-tenth of a grain for an adult woman,
being the largest safe dose given hypodermically. Two or three grains
given by the stomach is dangerous. But, as with opium, the dose varies
with idiosyncrasy, and some can tolerate larger doses than others.
With habituation, some persons can take with impunity an amount of
morphia which would prove fatal to five or six healthy, full-grown
men. To have its full effect as an hypnotic or anodyne—and its power
as the one depends upon its potency as the other—morphia must be given
hypodermically.
The possession of morphia by people other than medical men and chemists
is prohibited by law; and the rules governing its sale by chemists are
rigid and exact. They must account for every grain sold, and all entries
in their sales registers must be supported by prescriptions signed by
qualified medical men. Yet morphia injecting is more prevalent in cities
than the public is aware of; and it does not require a very penetrating
mind to discover that the morphia used by its unfortunate victims
comes from illicit sources—from the smuggler. There are, of course,
unscrupulous physicians, dentists, and quacks, who pander to the cravings
of some of their “patients” by administering regular injections; but we
are dealing here with the type of persons who do not call in doctors,
accommodating or otherwise. The ones I write about are catered for by an
organization which, in spite of the greatest efforts, has been found to
be unrepressible.
[Illustration: GROUP OF MORPHIA-INJECTORS]
How do these people get their supplies? Let us go into a morphia den
unofficially, and take a glance at it in all its sordidity. We draw
aside a filthy sheet of cloth which does service as a curtain, and
enter a room about twenty feet square. It is dim almost to darkness;
but at the farther end, opposite the entrance door, we notice a wooden
partition which has a locked door in it, and near it a hole not unlike
the window of a box or ticket office. Through this hole a light is
seen, so we presume that there is someone behind the locked door in the
partitioned-off portion of the room. Looking round us, we see a row of
human figures, clad in the foulest rags, lying along the two sides of
the room, near the walls. Some are apparently asleep; actually, they are
drugged, overcome by the last injection of morphia. Others are about to
make themselves comfortable for a sleep, having just had an injection;
while some, too poor to afford the cost of another dose, are groaning and
whimpering with the combined agonies of some painful disease, and the
wearing off of the effects of the last injection. These accost everybody
that enters the den for the price of “just one little injection.”
They appeal to those who have endured the same pangs with which these
unfortunates are wracked. The appeal is to a real, live sympathy; and if
it can be spared, the required money is handed over.
One of these beings has not appealed in vain to a fellow votary who has
just entered the den in company with two companions, and the four make
their way to the hole in the partition, and in exchange for the coppers
handed in, a skinny hand passes out four little paper packets, each one
containing a dose of morphia powder. Let us peep through the hole, and
look at the owner of the skinny hand before following the four to the
place to which they have retired. It is a Chinaman, characteristically
lean, sitting at a rough table on which is a cigar box filled with paper
packets similar to those we saw being handed to the late purchasers. The
red and green ones contain morphia, the white cocaine (for he caters
for both classes, the injecters of morphia, and eaters of cocaine).
Looking up at the hole, he sees us, and thinking we are either excise
or police officers, he hastily gathers up his wares, and rushing to the
sanitary arrangement in the corner of his cubicle, empties them into
the receptacle, and pulling the chain, flushes away the incriminating
evidences of his occupation. Being assured that they are well on their
way to the sea through the sewer, he turns towards us with a “smile that
is child-like and bland,” and explains that he has “got nothing—all
gone—you can’t do nothing.” We explain that we had no intention of doing
anything, and were merely curious. Recollecting that he had heard no call
from his ever watchful colleague who stands by to give timely warning in
the event of a raiding party coming in sight, he admits that he has been
precipitate; but in no way disconcerted, he sends his colleague off to
some place best known to themselves, for a fresh supply of packets.
We now return to the four men who provided themselves with morphia two or
three minutes ago. We find them sitting in a ring round another fellow
who we learn is the operator. He possesses a hypodermic syringe. Let
us take and examine it. It is not the sort of thing one would expect to
find in a chemist’s show-case or a medical man’s pocket-case. This is a
weird instrument; the barrel a length of glass tubing; the plunger a bit
of knitting needle, whose plunging head consists of tightly wound rag,
and whose other end is topped with a conglomerate of sealing wax and
sewing thimble. Both joints are lumps of sealing wax, through the lower
of which an inch and a half of hollow needle projects. Handing back this
septic instrument to the operator, who, by the way, tells us that he gets
a copper for every injection he gives, he proceeds to empty the contents
of the packets into a small china egg-cup. Adding a modicum of water,
and stirring the mixture until a clear solution is formed, he takes up
some in the syringe, and one of the expectant waiters draws nearer him.
A search is made by the operator for a clear spot on the body of the
man, where a dirty needle has not already penetrated and caused a foul
sore, and after some search such a spot is found, _on the palm of the
hand_, and here the needle is introduced, and the contents of the syringe
discharged, after which the man operated on limps away to his place, and
lying down, is soon asleep. The next draws near, and having received his
share of the dose with the same needle, unsterilized and unwashed, he in
turn limps off; and so with the others.
Let us hope that the fell, loathesome, unnameable disease, from which
one at any rate of the four was too apparently suffering, has not been
introduced into the blood of the others by that death-dealing needle! But
it is a hope that we cannot think is justified; the means of propagation
employed are too certain to admit of any hope!
The foul and fetid atmosphere of the crowded room is almost overpowering,
in spite of the strong tobacco we smoke in our well-lit pipes, but we
will linger a little longer and take a glance at those who are lying
around like so many logs. Look at this one of them. What an object
lesson he is to impetuous youth! Thin to emaciation; his hair fallen off
in tufts; his nose almost eaten away; his body covered with sores and
ulcers. There is nothing to wonder at in this being taking morphia to
ease his pain of mind and body. Since death will not come, let him have
oblivion. It is better so.
Here we find a woman; she is a slattern if ever there was one.
Clean-limbed, in the sense that she has no sores on visible parts of her
body, she is nevertheless almost as certain a disseminator of disease and
misery as the foul needle. She wakes as we watch her, and in a drowsy
way, smiles; probably in a way she means to be fascinating, but we are
not under the effects of the delusive narcotic, so cannot be expected to
know! Suddenly a look of intelligence comes into her eyes, and realising
who we are, she gets up, and stumbles towards the door, and out on to the
street—on her way to _another_ den in all probability!
[Illustration: AN INDIAN MORPHINIST]
Here is another. An old, or rather, an old-looking man, shrivelled and
feeble. He is just awaking from his stupor. We ask him to get up, but he
is unable to do more than humbly indicate the reason for his inability
to do so. A glance, as the sheet which covers him is withdrawn from his
body, sends a thrill of horror through us, and we turn away sickened at
the sight; and the man—is he a man?—draws his cloth over his tattered
body, and tries to woo sleep again. This last sight is enough to send us
headlong into the fresh air and sunlight. If these are the results of
morphia, then God have mercy upon its votaries, for they stand sorely in
need of it!
Morphia is imported into the country in large quantities by smugglers,
the drug being brought from the British Isles, Japan, and the Continent
by members of the crews of steamers plying from these countries. As many
as 500 ounces of morphia have been seized in one consignment, and, as
it is generally admitted by those who are in position to know that for
every ounce seized, a pound passes through undetected, it only requires a
simple calculation to arrive at the approximate total quantity which is
hawked about unrestricted.
Morphia, being more portable and concentrated, is more easily concealed
than opium, which is comparatively bulky. Of the aggregate seizures
in any one year, seventy-five per cent. is made up of numerous small
seizures. To seize four or five ounces of the drug in one lot is rather
the exception than the rule; and seizure in larger quantities is a
comparatively rare event.
But it is comforting, in a way, to know that morphia, by the time it
reaches the consumer, is very often freely adulterated, starch being the
adulterant used; and when it is considered that morphia sold illicitly
fetches from five to six times its price when sold licitly, the increase
in its bulk which results after adulteration represents a handsome
additional profit to the vendor. The big smuggler imports the drug; his
lesser brother buys some from him and adulterates it; the den-owner buys
the mixture from the lesser light and he in turn adds a little more
starch to it; and finally “the man in the cubicle” retails the mixture to
the consumer.
There is little to be said in defence of the morphia habit. It is bad,
utterly bad, in itself, while it is a fertile disseminator of disease
when injected as it is. Morphia ruins a man, body and soul. As is the
case with opium, pain is a frequent originator of the habit, but its hold
upon the individual is, if anything, stronger than that exerted by opium,
and fatal consequences ensue with great certainty and rapidity.