Slaves To Cocaine

It is a remarkable fact that those who yield most blindly to the influence of drugs are usually persons of briliant intellect and delicate mental poise, Eor whom a grosser stimulant would have little attraction, says the New York Journal. A sad case in point is that of a young physician in Cleveland, Ohio, who returned recently from Europe, where he had been taking a hospital course under a famous London surgeon, only to die within a month a pitiful wreek. While in London an unforunate love affair so depressed the young man'a spirits that he had to recourse to a stimulant to enable him to pursue his work with concentrated effort. He chose cocaine and flnished his course with distinguished succes mailing for home shortly afterward a slav? in body and soul to the deadly habit. The talents and ability of the victim and the proiainence oL his family give an unusuml interest to this instance, though thers is not a city in the land that has not its parallel. Since the beginning of tim mankind has sought surcease of pain in nature's remedies and when found the balm has not Infrequently proved a bañe to the life of the beneficiary. More than 1,500 ,-ears ago the Chinese employed Indian hemp to produce insensibility, or at least indifference to suffering. The Oreeks and Romans used mandragora as a sedative, and in the thirteenth century it was combined with the "essence of the poppy." Since the beginning of the present century a number of anaesthetics of varying degreesofusefulnesshave been discovered and introduced into their own departments of medical practice; chief among them and regarded as tbc greatest blessing of all is chloroform. Cocaine, an alkaloid of cocoa leaves, was discovered in 1859, but remained in comparative obscurity until 1884. In minute doses whether taken internally or used as a spray on mucous surfaces, its effect is wonderfully exhilarating, producing for a time the fresh and buoyant sensations of youth and perfect health, that have apparently no unpleasant reaction; and therein lies the explanation of the subtle and irresistible power it quickly acquires over its victims, carrying them to the very brink of destruction before they have dreamed of danger. Being a cumulative poison, the flrst warning symptom does not appear untiJ the fatal chains are riveted that shaïl drag them, horror-stricken and powerless of resistance, over the precipice to complete mental, moral and physical ruin.