ABSTRACT
The subcutaneous injection of morphia has become a comparatively common household remedy among certain classes of society for some years past. More especially among the very numerous persons, chiefly women, who suffer either from neuralgia of greater or less severity, or even from attacks of nervous depression and sleeplessness. This chapter shows that the risks of such mischief may be reduced to a minimum by strict attention to certain rules and principles. The hypodermic use of purely stimulant doses of morphia is of wide application, and of a value which it is difficult to exaggerate. In the intense pains of acute serous and fibrous inflammations; in the early stages of neuralgias; in the insomnia and delirium of many adynamic fevers; in phagedaenic ulceration; in the dyspepsia of nervous irritation; and in some cases of decided catarrhal inflammation of the alimentary mucous membrane, this kind of administration of morphia produces effects superior to anything which could be obtained before its introduction.
