(2 of 2)
In the City Hospital on Welfare Island, 219 men and 147 women— lean as gulls, most of them, some with red patches under their nostrils ("snowbirds," "sniffers") some with their forearms and thighs pockmarked with infected needle-sores; some sent to the narcotic ward by prison authorities, some self-committed in an attempt to get rid of their addiction—took the narcosan treatment. The solution is injected with a hypodermic syringe. The lipoids in narcosan neutralize toxic substances. The proteins stimulate new blood formation. This, at all events, is the theory of the way in which it works. The facts of its effect are simpler. In 24 hours the addicts were able to sleep normally. In 72 hours they stopped asking for drugs. Their appetite for food increased; they wanted food every minute, particularly sweet food. Their skin became firm; they showed no sign of nervousness; they were declared cured, at least temporarily. Only one came back, a Negress who yearned for languor. And what, doctors wondered, will narcosan do for the shadowy, secretive regiments of U. S. addicts to opium, to morphin, to cocain?
Opium is the mother of narcotics. Derived from the unripe seed-capsules of a kind of poppy grown in India and China, it slows the heart, contracts the pupils of the eyes, binds the bowels, relieves pain and fills the brain with languor and strange faces. There is opium in paregoric (baby-soother), in Dover's powder (cold remedy), and in many another household drug, drugs that seem kind. Opium gum looks like black paste. Addicts who smoke it use a small lamp, like a dentist's lamp, over which they give the dark pellet a slow roasting; then they put it in the tiny bowl of a long pipe. Their dreams are gentle. Opium does not waste tissues so quickly as does alcohol.
Morphin is an alkaloid derived from opium. Its stupefying effects are like the effects of opium, and four times as strong. A "dope" (morphin addict) quivers with hunger as the time comes for his injection. Sometimes he has a hard time finding a place to take it; he goes into a hotel washroom, a taxicab, even a telephone booth. Out of his pocket comes a piece of candle. He wants to sterilize his injection. He puts water in a spoon, heats it over the candle, dissolves his morphin, filters the solution through cotton, fills his needle, injects. It is to him a holy ritual. He is happiest when he has an acolyte; someone who wants to try dope—to watch the slow fire of rot filter through the novice's veins. He keeps the papers his powders come in. When he has no more dope he can lick the grains of dust clinging to the paper. Many Negroes are addicts; they took to it because it once was hard for them to get liquor. It relieves their spiritual tensions. The South uses more morphin than the North.
Hypnotic drugs which induce sleep are often confused with the narcotics which dull pain. Bromides, sulphonal, veronal are hypnotics. Insomniacs take them habitually. Other habit-forming drugs are ether, alcohol, chloroform, hashish (the drug of inspired assassins) and mandrake,* sleepy syrup that comes from a forked root.
*Theorists have suggested that there was mandrake, not vinegar, on the sponge offered to Christ on the Cross.