THE NARCOTIC DRUG PROBLEM
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS
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MACMILLAN & CO., Limited
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MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO
THE NARCOTIC DRUG PROBLEM
BY
ERNEST S. BISHOP, M.D., F.A.C.P.
Clinical Professor of Medicine, New York Polyclinic Medical School;Member Narcotic Committee, Conference of Judges and Justicesof New York State; Committee on Habit Forming Drugs,Section on Food and Drugs, American PublicHealth Association.
Formerly Resident Physician, Alcoholic, Narcotic and Prison Service,Bellevue Hospital; Formerly Visiting Physician and President ofthe Medical Board, Workhouse Hospital. New York Departmentof Corrections; Fellow Academy of Medicine, VisitingPhysician St. Joseph Tuberculosis Hospital, ConsultingPhysician to St. Mark’s Hospital,etc., etc.
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1920
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1920
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Set up and electrotyped. Published January, 1920.
TO
MY WIFE,
WHO HAS SHARED MY BURDENS AND HELPED INMY WORK, AND WHOSE INTEREST IN AND SYMPATHYWITH MY WORK HAS MADE MUCH OF ITPOSSIBLE,THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED.
[Pg vii]
PREFACE
This book has been prepared in response to a growing demand that theauthor group together under one cover some of the material collectedout of a varied experience with many aspects and phases of narcoticdrug addiction, and with activities in the attempted solution of itsproblems.
Some of this experience has been previously presented in many addressesbefore scientific and other societies and in articles in the medicalpress.
The author is not associated with nor interested in any hospital orinstitution active in the care of these cases for financial return orpecuniary benefit. He is not the exponent or mouthpiece or proponent ofany special or specific “remedy” or “treatment” or method of so-called“cure.” He has no axe to grind.
He is not a “specialist” in the treatment of narcotic drug addiction.He is a practitioner of diagnostic and clinical medicine, in whoseprofessional work the care of the narcotic addict has constituted muchthe smaller part of his activities and studies, and that part has beenlargely carried on without recompense and often at his personal expense.
Some years ago, through hospital affiliations and duties, the writerwas brought to face this problem of opiate addiction and after a whilesaw in it very important and very i