ABSTRACT
Heroin or diacetyl-morphin is so frequently employed in the treatment of various diseased conditions that the question of formation of habit from its use is a serious one. It is often prescribed for cough, the result of irritating conditions in the air-passages, and physicians not infrequently tell their patients what drug they are prescribing, so that indirectly the patient comes to look on heroin as a harmless sedative for his cough. In some cases, too, heroin is given hypodermically by surgeons to allay the discomforts before and after operations. In a case, the patient was a neurotic woman, aged 29, who was given heroin hypodermically for relief from pain after an operation for appendicitis. The effect was so pleasant that she asked the name of the drug. The chapter explores the fact that heroin is being used extensively by means of “snuffing,” in the tenderloin districts of large cities.
