The modern treatment of alcoholism and drug narcotism / by C.A. McBride.

  • McBride, Charles A.
Date:
1910
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: The modern treatment of alcoholism and drug narcotism / by C.A. McBride. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    has been ably answered by Dr. J. B. Mattison, who adopts the slower, more pleasant, and surer method. Among other distressing symptoms after sudden withdrawal, the following have been observed in an aggravated form :—Rigors, nausea, vomiting, exhaustive diarrhoea, convulsions, delirium, prostration, collapse. Languor and sneezing are minor troubles. The agony is in many cases indescribable, and the symptoms are so alarming, that the full narcotic dose of the drug has had to be given to avert a fatal issue. My sympathies are with the heroic course, but the sufferings undergone, with some risks (such as paralysis), consequent on the peremptory stoppage of supplies, have forced me to the con- clusion that gradual diminution of the dose ought to rule. ‘There are cases in which immediate cessation of the drug occasions comparatively little distress, and is successful ; but these have been, so far as I have seen, exceptional. I generally spread the periods of gradual diminution of the dose till entire discontinuance of the drug, over four or five weeks. The length of this tapering-off process, however, depends chiefly on the daily amount of opium or morphia used, while taking the idiosyncracy of the narcotee and the effect of the poison on the individual constitution into account. Occasionally three weeks suffice, but the duration sometimes extends over eight weeks. “Here potassium and sodium bromides are