HABITS THAT HANDICAP

HABITS
THAT HANDICAP
The Menace of Opium, Alcohol, and Tobacco,
and the Remedy

BY
CHARLES B. TOWNS

NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1916

Copyright, 1915, by
The Century Co.

Published, August, 1915

PREFACE

It is interesting to note that a year or more ago a few deaths from bichlorid of mercury poisoning caused within a period of six months a general movement toward protective legislation. This movement was successful, and after the lapse of only a short time the public was thoroughly protected against this dangerous poison. It will be observed that the financial returns from the total sale of bichlorid of mercury tablets could be but small. Had the financial interests involved been of a magnitude comparable with those interested in the manufacture and promotion of habit-forming drugs, I have often wondered if the result would not have been less effective and as prompt. Bichlorid of mercury never threatened any large proportion of the public, and those falling victims to it merely die. Opium and its derivatives threaten the entire public, especially those who are sick and in pain, and with a fate far more terrible than death—a thraldom of misery, inefficiency, and disgrace.

Lest somewhere there be found within the pages of this book remarks that may lead the reader to suppose that I unduly criticize the doctor, and therefore that I am the doctor’s enemy, I feel that it behooves me to add that in the whole community he has not one admirer more whole-souled.

PREFACE

Some years ago, Mr. Charles B. Towns came to me with a letter from Dr. Alexander Lambert and claimed that he had a way of stopping the morphia habit. The claim seemed to me an entirely impossible statement, and I told Mr. Towns so; but at Dr. Lambert’s suggestion, I promised to look into the matter. Accordingly, I visited Mr. Towns’s hospital, and watched the course of treatment there at different times in the day and night. I became convinced that the withdrawal of morphine was accomplished under this treatment with vastly less suffering than that entailed by any other treatment or method I had ever seen. Subsequently, I sent Mr. Towns several patients, who easily and quickly were rid of their morphia addiction, and have now remained well for a number of years.

At that time I had the impression that the treatment was largely due to the force of Mr. Towns’s very vigorous and helpful personality, but when subsequently a similar institution was established near Boston, I became convinced by observation of cases treated in that hospital that Mr. Towns’s personality was not an essential element in that treatment. His skill, however, in the actual management of cases, from the medical point of view, was very hard to duplicate, and Mr. Towns generously came from New York, when called upon, and showed us what was wrong in the management of cases which were not doing well. I do not hesitate to say that he knows more about the alleviation and cure of drug addictions than any doctor that I have ever seen.

All the statements made in this book except those relating to tobacco I can verify from similar experiences of my own, since I have known and used Mr. Towns’s method of treatment.

I do not pretend to say how his treatment accomplishes the results which I have seen it accomplish, but I have yet to learn of any one who has given it a thorough trial who has obtained results differing in any considerable way from those to which Mr. Towns refers.

The wider applications and generalizations of the book seem to me very instructive. The shortcomings of the medical profession, of the druggists, and those who have to do with the management of alcoholics in courts of law seem to me well substantiated by the facts. Mr. Towns’s plans for legislative control of drug habits also seem to me wise and far-reaching. He is, I believe, one of the most public-spirited as well as one of the most honest and forceful men that I have ever known.

I am glad to have this opportunity of expressing my faith and confidence in him and my sense of the value of the book he has written.

Richard C. Cabot.

INTRODUCTION

There is only one way by means of which humanity can be relieved of the curse of drug using, and that is to adopt methods putting the entire responsibility upon the doctor. Until the present legislation was passed in New York State, no one had ever considered the doctor’s responsibility; this most valuable medical asset and most terrible potential curse had been virtually without safeguard of any effective kind. Discussion of the drug problem in the press dealt wholly with those phases which make themselves manifest in the underworld or among the Chinese. I am reasonably certain that until very recently the world had heard nothing of the blameless men and women who had become drug-users as the result of illness. This seems strange, since there are in the United States more victims of the drug habit than there are of tuberculosis. It is estimated that fifteen per cent, of the practising physicians in the country are addicted to the habit, and although I think this is an exaggeration, it is nevertheless true that habit-forming drugs demand a heavy toll from the medical profession, wrecking able practitioners in health and reputation, and of course seriously endangering the public.

I have elsewhere explained the fact that the medical man himself is ignorant of the length to which he can safely go in the administration of drugs to his patients. If he is ignorant of what quantity and manner of dosage constitutes a peril for the patient, is it not reasonable to suppose that similar ignorance exists in his mind with regard to his own relations with the drug habit? As a matter of fact, I know this to be the case; many physicians have come to me for help, and ninety-nine per cent. of them explained to me that their use of drugs was the direct outgrowth of their ignorance. If the man who practises medicine is unaware of what will bring about the habit, what can be expected of the medically uneducated citizen who is threatened by those in whom he has most confidence—his doctors?

The wide extent of the drug habit in this country has not been apparent. The man suffering from a physical disease either shows it or makes it known; the man suffering from the drug habit presents unfamiliar and unidentified symptoms, and far from being willing to make his affliction known, through shame he tries to conceal it at all hazards. Until legislation forced the victims of drug habits by hundreds into Bellevue Hospital in New York, this great institution rarely had one as a patient. The sufferer from tuberculosis would seek this hospital, feeling that there he might find measurable relief; the drug-user shunned it, for he was doubtful of receiving aid, and above all things he dreaded deprivation without relief. No man or woman will go to any institution