The Opiiim-Rccord for the United States. 4 1

excepted as unrepresented by its two classes of ine-
briates, the devotees to alcoholics and the more
miserable slaves to opium. Turn whichever way,
you will come upon the druggists by twos or tens
with their lists (provided they do not set face against
applicants) ; and as for the doctors, they could tell ugly
tales, but that silence — "expressive silence'' it may be
— is written on their foreheads. Dr. Barnes of Ohio
has expressed the opinion, that for his section more
deaths are traceable to opium as their remote cause
than to the alcoholic crudities so freely in use. Dr.
Palmer of Ontario has among his notes of practice
the names of above a hundred patients, without count-
ing such as came to his knowledge by simple hear-
say, invalids from such enslavement.
1 1. Thus addresses the writer, a physician and drug-
gist of a New England city, Dr. S. S. : " In this town
I began business twenty years since. The population,
then at 10,000, has increased only inconsiderably, but
my sales have advanced from 50 pounds of opium the
first year to 300 pounds now; and of laudanum four
times upon what was formerly required. About 50
regular purchasers come to my shop, and as many
more, perhaps, are divided among the other three
apothecaries in the place. Small country dealers also
have their quotas of dependents." Such is no solitary
record.
12. In the Portland Press, 1868, a correspondent
sounds the alarm-note in these words : " Very few of
our. people are aware how many habitual consumers.
of opium among us a careful scrutiny would dis-



42 opium.
