CHAPTER X.

MORPHIA.

Morphia, which is the active principle of opium, is interesting in its being the first “alkaloid” to be discovered. Its basic nature was first noticed by Serturner in 1816.

As a medicine, principally as an anodyne, morphia is to pharmacy what chloroform is to surgery, and, as a “boon and blessing” to man in that character, it is second to none. But like all good things in this world, it has become the object of the grossest abuse at the hand of man; and its devotees, in an euphonic sense, number hundreds of thousands.

Morphia is a narcotic; that is, it “has the power to produce lethargy or stupor which may pass into a state of profound coma or unconsciousness, along with complete paralysis, terminating in death.” The degree of insensibility depends upon the strength of the dose; one-sixth of a grain for an adult man, and one-tenth of a grain for an adult woman, being the largest safe dose given hypodermically. Two or three grains given by the stomach is dangerous. But, as with opium, the dose varies with idiosyncrasy, and some can tolerate larger doses than others. With habituation, some persons can take with impunity an amount of morphia which would prove fatal to five or six healthy, full-grown men. To have its full effect as an hypnotic or anodyne—and its power as the one depends upon its potency as the other—morphia must be given hypodermically.

The possession of morphia by people other than medical men and chemists is prohibited by law; and the rules governing its sale by chemists are rigid and exact. They must account for every grain sold, and all entries in their sales registers must be supported by prescriptions signed by qualified medical men. Yet morphia injecting is more prevalent in cities than the public is aware of; and it does not require a very penetrating mind to discover that the morphia used by its unfortunate victims comes from illicit sources—from the smuggler. There are, of course, unscrupulous physicians, dentists, and quacks, who pander to the cravings of some of their “patients” by administering regular injections; but we are dealing here with the type of persons who do not call in doctors, accommodating or otherwise. The ones I write about are catered for by an organization which, in spite of the greatest efforts, has been found to be unrepressible.

How do these people get their supplies? Let us go into a morphia den unofficially, and take a glance at it in all its sordidity. We draw aside a filthy sheet of cloth which does service as a curtain, and enter a room about twenty feet square. It is dim almost to darkness; but at the farther end, opposite the entrance door, we notice a wooden partition which has a locked door in it, and near it a hole not unlike the window of a box or ticket office. Through this hole a light is seen, so we presume that there is someone behind the locked door in the partitioned-off portion of the room. Looking round us, we see a row of human figures, clad in the foulest rags, lying along the two sides of the room, near the walls. Some are apparently asleep; actually, they are drugged, overcome by the last injection of morphia. Others are about to make themselves comfortable for a sleep, having just had an injection; while some, too poor to afford the cost of another dose, are groaning and whimpering with the combined agonies of some painful disease, and the wearing off of the effects of the last injection. These accost everybody that enters the den for the price of “just one little injection.” They appeal to those who have endured the same pangs with which these unfortunates are wracked. The appeal is to a real, live sympathy; and if it can be spared, the required money is handed over.

One of these beings has not appealed in vain to a fellow votary who has just entered the den in company with two companions, and the four make their way to the hole in the partition, and in exchange for the coppers handed in, a skinny hand passes out four little paper packets, each one containing a dose of morphia powder. Let us peep through the hole, and look at the owner of the skinny hand before following the four to the place to which they have retired. It is a Chinaman, characteristically lean, sitting at a rough table on which is a cigar box filled with paper packets similar to those we saw being handed to the late purchasers. The red and green ones contain morphia, the white cocaine (for he caters for both classes, the injecters of morphia, and eaters of cocaine). Looking up at the hole, he sees us, and thinking we are either excise or police officers, he hastily gathers up his wares, and rushing to the sanitary arrangement in the corner of his cubicle, empties them into the receptacle, and pulling the chain, flushes away the incriminating evidences of his occupation. Being assured that they are well on their way to the sea through the sewer, he turns towards us with a “smile that is child-like and bland,” and explains that he has “got nothing—all gone—you can’t do nothing.” We explain that we had no intention of doing anything, and were merely curious. Recollecting that he had heard no call from his ever watchful colleague who stands by to give timely warning in the event of a raiding party coming in sight, he admits that he has been precipitate; but in no way disconcerted, he sends his colleague off to some place best known to themselves, for a fresh supply of packets.

We now return to the four men who provided themselves with morphia two or three minutes ago. We find them sitting in a ring round another fellow who we learn is the operator. He possesses a hypodermic syringe. Let us take and examine it. It is not the sort of thing one would expect to find in a chemist’s show-case or a medical man’s pocket-case. This is a weird instrument; the barrel a length of glass tubing; the plunger a bit of knitting needle, whose plunging head consists of tightly wound rag, and whose other end is topped with a conglomerate of sealing wax and sewing thimble. Both joints are lumps of sealing wax, through the lower of which an inch and a half of hollow needle projects. Handing back this septic instrument to the operator, who, by the way, tells us that he gets a copper for every injection he gives, he proceeds to empty the contents of the packets into a small china egg-cup. Adding a modicum of water, and stirring the mixture until a clear solution is formed, he takes up some in the syringe, and one of the expectant waiters draws nearer him. A search is made by the operator for a clear spot on the body of the man, where a dirty needle has not already penetrated and caused a foul sore, and after some search such a spot is found, _on the palm of the hand_, and here the needle is introduced, and the contents of the syringe discharged, after which the man operated on limps away to his place, and lying down, is soon asleep. The next draws near, and having received his share of the dose with the same needle, unsterilized and unwashed, he in turn limps off; and so with the others.

Let us hope that the fell, loathesome, unnameable disease, from which one at any rate of the four was too apparently suffering, has not been introduced into the blood of the others by that death-dealing needle! But it is a hope that we cannot think is justified; the means of propagation employed are too certain to admit of any hope!

The foul and fetid atmosphere of the crowded room is almost overpowering, in spite of the strong tobacco we smoke in our well-lit pipes, but we will linger a little longer and take a glance at those who are lying around like so many logs. Look at this one of them. What an object lesson he is to impetuous youth! Thin to emaciation; his hair fallen off in tufts; his nose almost eaten away; his body covered with sores and ulcers. There is nothing to wonder at in this being taking morphia to ease his pain of mind and body. Since death will not come, let him have oblivion. It is better so.

Here we find a woman; she is a slattern if ever there was one. Clean-limbed, in the sense that she has no sores on visible parts of her body, she is nevertheless almost as certain a disseminator of disease and misery as the foul needle. She wakes as we watch her, and in a drowsy way, smiles; probably in a way she means to be fascinating, but we are not under the effects of the delusive narcotic, so cannot be expected to know! Suddenly a look of intelligence comes into her eyes, and realising who we are, she gets up, and stumbles towards the door, and out on to the street—on her way to _another_ den in all probability!

Here is another. An old, or rather, an old-looking man, shrivelled and feeble. He is just awaking from his stupor. We ask him to get up, but he is unable to do more than humbly indicate the reason for his inability to do so. A glance, as the sheet which covers him is withdrawn from his body, sends a thrill of horror through us, and we turn away sickened at the sight; and the man—is he a man?—draws his cloth over his tattered body, and tries to woo sleep again. This last sight is enough to send us headlong into the fresh air and sunlight. If these are the results of morphia, then God have mercy upon its votaries, for they stand sorely in need of it!

Morphia is imported into the country in large quantities by smugglers, the drug being brought from the British Isles, Japan, and the Continent by members of the crews of steamers plying from these countries. As many as 500 ounces of morphia have been seized in one consignment, and, as it is generally admitted by those who are in position to know that for every ounce seized, a pound passes through undetected, it only requires a simple calculation to arrive at the approximate total quantity which is hawked about unrestricted.

Morphia, being more portable and concentrated, is more easily concealed than opium, which is comparatively bulky. Of the aggregate seizures in any one year, seventy-five per cent. is made up of numerous small seizures. To seize four or five ounces of the drug in one lot is rather the exception than the rule; and seizure in larger quantities is a comparatively rare event.

But it is comforting, in a way, to know that morphia, by the time it reaches the consumer, is very often freely adulterated, starch being the adulterant used; and when it is considered that morphia sold illicitly fetches from five to six times its price when sold licitly, the increase in its bulk which results after adulteration represents a handsome additional profit to the vendor. The big smuggler imports the drug; his lesser brother buys some from him and adulterates it; the den-owner buys the mixture from the lesser light and he in turn adds a little more starch to it; and finally “the man in the cubicle” retails the mixture to the consumer.

There is little to be said in defence of the morphia habit. It is bad, utterly bad, in itself, while it is a fertile disseminator of disease when injected as it is. Morphia ruins a man, body and soul. As is the case with opium, pain is a frequent originator of the habit, but its hold upon the individual is, if anything, stronger than that exerted by opium, and fatal consequences ensue with great certainty and rapidity.