Morphinomania

or MORPHINISM. The opium habit. An excessive desire for morphia. The irresistible desire for this drug, when acquired, resembles dipsomania (q. v.J. The result of continued and excessive indulgen\;e in the habit is apt to be a species of Insanity (q. V.), and sudden deprivation of the drug resxilts to the victim in extreme physical discomfort and insomnia, with the possibility of that form of insanity grouped as mania (q. V.). The physical results of the habit Include the demoralization of most of, the functions of the body, while mentally the final results are those of dementia (q. v.), with lowering of the moral character, loss of judgment and of memory, special tendency to lying, neglect of family and business and not uncommonly forgery. While the inception of the habit is generally due to the legitimate use of the drug to relieve pain, its continuance and abuse are said “to depend on a neurotic state which is due to an inherited degenerative nervous organization” and that “rarely will this habit plant Itself upon an otherwise sound organization.” 3 Wltth. & Beck. Jur. For. Med. & Tox. 258. An agreement to treat one for this habit until he was “fully and permanently cured” is to be construed as intending that he should be restored to a xiormal condition, with the same power to resist the habit as before he acquired it, and not to put him in a condition in which he could not take the drug; Wellman v. Jones, 124 Ala. 680, 27 South. 416. See a note in 39