THE INTENSIVE TREATMENT OF MORPHINE ADDICTION

With the inception of morphine by Serturner in 1803, man was given a new and more efficient means of relief from pain.1 Little did Serturner realize that but a few years later the medical profession would be faced with the problem of addiction to this drug and searching for a successful means of relief when it was taken or given inadvertently. The problem becomes even greater when it is realized that the profession is not dealing with mentally normal men and women in addiction, with the exception of the few who have taken the drug over long periods of time for some painful and possibly incurable malady. Certainly there is the possibility that any person using a narcotic drug over a long period of time is in danger of becoming addicted to it, but it is very doubtful whether a normal person ever actually becomes a drug addict.One