scattered into the water. None but the haggard young man could, at the moment, comprehend the appalling magnitude of the calamity—there, as he was, two hundred miles from the nearest settlement! He survived the terrible ordeal, but no words could express, he has said, the tortures and agony through which he passed during the succeeding weeks. He was closely watched, else, at times, he would have drowned himself or have beaten his brains out upon the rocks. Months afterward he came back to the world a skeleton, worn and haggard, from his terrible contest. It was an experience to which he could never afterward refer without the most painful emotions.
Not the least significant point in this veritable account is the fact that the young man always believed that his father had purposely brought about the catastrophe for the sake of bringing matters to a speedy end! Has the usual treatment of the disease by physicians at this day anything to offer that is much better than this man's summary method? Perhaps no work on the subject has appeared in recent years more careful and thorough in its scientific intention than Dr. Levinstein's "Morbid Craving for Morphia." It is evident that he has brought no common accuracy of observation to bear upon the subject. His clinical notes on a considerable number of cases of the disease treated by him are of absorbing interest to the morphia habitué.
There is a striking parallel between the method of the Maine lumberman I have described and that of advanced German science in the treatment of this disease. In both cases the patient suffers from the intense cruelty of ignorance! The best thing to do for the unfortunate victim of morphia, according to this learned work, is to secure him in rooms under charge of a competent keeper or nurse, his person and baggage having been searched, and from the rooms "all opportunities for attempting suicide having been removed. Doors and windows must not move on hinges, but on pivots; must have neither handles, nor bolts, nor keys; being so constructed that the patients can neither open nor shut them. Hooks for looking-glasses, for clothes, and curtains, must be removed." Certainly these are ominous preliminaries to a course of scientific medical treatment! Within this prison the patient is totally deprived at once of morphia in every form, and here he must struggle through the terrible weeks succeeding as best he may. So far as appears, he has but the slightest medical aid. His symptoms are closely watched, however, for the portentous shadow of one special danger looms ever near his bedside that of a sudden collapse of his vital powers. A few moments' delay in such a contingency may prevent all power of resuscitation; in any case, the situation is very critical. Fortunate will it be if morphia, which is always the immediate resort in such emergencies, have not lost its potency!
I will not recount the story of the tortures through which the
