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The New York Times March 28, 1908
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3 MORPHINE FIENDS TAKING A NEW CURE
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Physician Demonstrating Remedy Says It Will Restore Victims in 72 Hours.
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Enough of Drug to Kill Seven Normal Men Given to Patients Before corrective Is
Administered.
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Dr. C.C. Langsdorf, who has been studying the treatment of morphine cases
for a number of years, started in bellevue Hospital yesterday a demonstration of what he
asserts to be a cure for the habit.
Dr. Langsdorf has already given the formula for the physic which he believes will cure
morphine victims to Dr. Hastings, the visiting physician and Dr. Kearns, the house
physician, of the alcoholic and drug ward of the hospital. His demonstration was begun on
condition that in the event of its success the formula is to be given out for general use
for the sake of that part of humanity which has become addicted to the habit.
Yesterday morning three cases of the apparently hopeless type of morphine fiends were
assigned to Dr. Langsdorf for treatment. They were all white men under 30 years of age.
One of them, with the mendacity typical of morphine fiends, had stanchly declared himself
cured of the habit and was about to leave the hospital when he heard of the experiments
about to take place. Weak as he had been in forfending the craving for the drug, he asked
to be allowed to undergo the treatment, and was added to the two patients already chosen.
Gave Each patient Seven Grains.
The three patients chosen were such confirmed victims of morphia that each of them was
given seven grains of the drug before Dr. Langsdorf administered his first corrective
dose. One grain of morphine will kill an ordinary man, but the systems of these three were
so saturated with the drug that they had reached the state called tolerance by scientists,
which permitted them to take seven grains each without risk to their lives.
Dr. Langsdorf explained that he desired the patients to have their full accustomed measure
of the drug, so that there would be no condition of collapse from lack of it while his
potion was at work.
The patients then took the dose of the "cure" provided by Dr. Langsdorf, and
were put under watch for the night. This morning they will receive their usual portion of
morphine just as if they were not under treatment.
"It will require seventytwo hours to effects a cure," said Dr. Langsdorf.
"At the end of that time the three men under treatment will find themselves in the
same physical condition in which they were before they took their first dose of morphine.
The formula I have prescribed for them awakens and gives back life to the secretive and
excretive powers that have been partially paralyzed by the use of the drug. While this is
the first public demonstration it is not the first experiment. I have cured many morphine
fiends, and only one of the lot has fallen after being cured.
"I have nothing to gain personally by the development of this cure. I am giving it
freely to humanity, and before I left Bellevue today I gave the prescription to the
physicians who witnessed the demonstration and the beginning of the treatment. At the end
of seventytwo hours I will give it to the public, and any victim of the drug may use it
and cure himself.
Many Physicians Drug Users.
"There are a great number of morphine fiends who are at present hopelessly in the
grip of the vice. Twenty per cent. Of my own profession use the drug. They do it because
of their trying hours of work and because of their familiarity with the use of the drug
and its temporary effects. They never believe they will become victims of morphine, and
take a little of it to induce sleep, and finally fall into the habit, as do others. I have
a patient now, a physician, who has become a victim of the drug in this way."
Dr. Langsdorf was asked if the appetite for the drug was entirely destroyed after the use
of his "cure."
"I merely put the victim back on his feet," he replied. "I put him in the
same condition in which he was before he ever touched morphine. There is human perversity
to count on, and no physic will build moral character of moral strength. But my cure will
leave the morphine fiend where he no longer needs the stimulant and where his system no
longer demands it. If he goes back to its use, it is because he does it deliberately and
through perversity."
Dr. Langsdorf, Dr. Hastings, and Dr. Kearns will examine the three patients today and
continue the experiment until tomorrow morning when there will be an end to
administering of the morphine and a demonstration of the success or the failure of the new
treatment.
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