ABSTRACT
In the month of June 1867. I was called to visit Mr.——M.D.B., staying at one of the hotels in this city, where he was confined to his room having symptoms of delirium tremens. He was thirty-seven years of age, stout, muscular and plethoric and of intemperate habits, had resided in New York city for the last six years where he practiced his profession as barrister at law. About the commencement of January 1865, he had an abscess in the thigh from which he suffered severe and continuous pain, and in order to allay his agonies and induce sleep he was, ordered by his physician to take a drahm of laudanum each night and a similar quantity during the day. He continued by that prescription for a period of three months until every symptom of his complaint had entirely disappeared; he then discontinued it but much to his discomfort becoming nervous, irritable and wakeful and subject occasionally to intolerable tremors. He was forced to resume his habit. He made repeated efforts to master his desires and stop the use of opium in any form, but without avail and finding it impossible to do without it, he was obliged to resume his accustomed draughts, gradually increasing the dose from time to time as nature seemed to suggest and require it, until he had fostered himself into the daily habit of taking astonishingly enormous quantities. In order to satiate and appease his abnormal appetite he found it necessary take half a drahm of sulphate of morphia daily, some days more and some days less.
