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The New York Times June 10, 1917
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CITY'S DRUG CURE CALLED A SUCCESS
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Dr. C.F. Stokes Reports to the Board of Inebriety Results of His Experiments
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Drugs Suddenly Withdrawn from Addicts Without Causing Suffering.
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The Board of Inebriety made public yesterday the report of Dr. Charles F.
Stokes, former Surgeon General of the United States Navy, on his experiments in the
treating of inebriates at the new York City farm colony in Orange County. Dr. Stokes
reported a new treatment for the drug habit, which consists essentially in sudden
withdrawal of the drug without suffering by the patient. The withdrawal is made once and
for all, and Dr. Stokes has perfected a special treatment which prevents the ill effects
and terrible suffering usually experienced by drug addicts when their supply of narcotics
is cut off.
Dr. Stokes's report recites that there are 2,000,000 victims of the drug habit in the
United States, as giving an idea of the enormity of the problem. He said that study of the
drug addicts on the farm away from the temptations of the city to give up the treatment,
helped him much.
"Existing national stress and the passage of the army law embodying conscription have
prompted the writer to present this incomplete report in the hope that drug addiction may
be lifted out of the vale of empiricism and confusion, so that the problem can be dealt
with on sound scientific lines."
Dr. Stokes said that more than 90 per cent. Of the drug addicts studied had no criminal
record and he voiced the belief that the use of the new treatment would give the United
States a force of great strength fit to work behind the lines during the war.
"Can we account for the grave condition commonly seen in sharp withdrawal of the drug
of addiction in narcotic habituation? We can. This abrupt withdrawal be accomplished
without distress? It can. Does the general condition uncovered demand aftercare? It
does, emphatically."
Dr. Stokes then drew a picture of the suffering of the drug addict who loses his supply
all at once, and said: "The writer long ago pointed out the pathology of the
withdrawal symptoms in narcotic addiction, and has since endeavored to unearth remedies
that would stimulate the extended vagus, the autonomous nervous system, firm in the belief
that when this was accomplished and an approach to the normal balance between the
sympathetic and autonomous systems could be established and maintained, the patient would
be free from symptoms of narcotic withdrawal.
"This has been amply demonstrated in a series of 130 cases made up of opium,
morphine, heroin, and codeine users. After a thorough trial, the ductless gland products
were discarded as too slow in action to combat sharply acute conditions. It was found that
in pilocarpine and eserine we have two remedies that meet the indications perfectly, in
doses far below the minimum medicinal doses in common use."
After describing the technic of his treatment, Dr. Stokes said: "There have been no
untoward symptoms in any cases in this series."
"It is interesting to observe," he continues, "the types of minds uncovered
in this way. In fact, in some cases the underlying factors on the cause of the addiction,
and there are always underlying causal factors, stand out strongly in evidence. The common
type of mind is that of an older child, a mind neither hardened or matured. The physical
damage is soon corrected in these cases. The readjustments in the nervous system takes a
longer time. It has seemed to me well worth while to explain as far as possible just what
is taking place, so that patients can cooperate, and will understand that the
readjustments at the psychic level are often tedious.
"By robbing the condition of much of the dread of suffering, this plan of treatment
appeals to addicts and they soon realize that convalescence begins at once instead of
being dragged out unduly through gradual reduction and other methods, that supplant one
poison with another. Sufficient time has not elapsed to make any definite predictions as
to the permanency of freedom from addiction, still the outlook is most promising,
particularly if the patients will seek new surroundings and associates when they resume
their former occupations. In the majority of cases relapses are due to their return to
their old pals and old haunts, where they are soon beset by the insistent drug seller.
"Heroin should be abolished. We found that this drug was used in over 90 per cent of
the cases seen by us. Heroin can be completely done away with without adding to the
suffering of the sick, or harming them. In fact, the United States Public Health Service,
in view of the drug evil, has discarded heroin completely, and will take steps to have
legislative measures enacted that will further meet this distressing situation."
Dr. Stokes was employed by the city to study the inmates of the farm in the search for a
new treatment. He enjoys a reputation as the man who did much to root drug addiction and
the excessive use of alcoholic drink out of the navy as Surgeon General.
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