Neuralgia of one-half of the face, in all respects like malarial hemicrania, I have seen in two cases. In neither were there other symptoms of malarial trouble. Both cases yielded to quinine and arsenic.
Super-sensitiveness of the skin, sometimes of the whole body, more often of a limb, or a feeling of numbness, is not uncommon.
A fact that I had noticed before I commenced the special study of this subject is, that those opium eaters who live past middle age usually die from paralysis. In four instances I have seen this. In all four cases the persons took laudanum.
CHAPTER V.
ACCIDENTS INCIDENT TO THE SUBCUTANEOUS INJECTION OF MORPHIA.
There are certain dangers attending the temporary or continued use of morphia by the hypodermic syringe that deserve careful attention, in order that, if possible, they may be remedied. The first is the production of abscess and inflammation.
The majority of those who use morphia in this way are badly scarred. The skin is thickened, reddened and covered with bluish and reddish discolorations. Abscesses just forming, formed, or commencing to heal, are found here and there. Ulcers and sloughs are sometimes seen. Cysts are occasionally met with. Isolated patches of erysipelatous inflammation and gangrene are found in some instances. In the accompanying cut (p. 73) is shown the condition of the skin in a male nurse at Bellevue Hospital, who was an habituè. The photograph from which the cut was made was taken but a short time before death. I have now other patients who are quite as badly scarred. In the case of a young married lady, the skin, everywhere that the dress covered the body in front, and the limbs all over, was scarred, contracted and discolored, as though she had been badly burned and then pricked all over with India ink.
Dujardin Beaumetz (quoted by Bartholow[11]) relates a case where these injuries resulted in death.
These abscesses are due, in the majority of instances, to (a) carelessness in injecting, (b) unclean needles or syringe, (c) a dirty or over-acid solution, and (d) a low condition of the general system, predisposing to inflammation and suppuration on slight irritation.
I have never seen but one habituè who had a clear solution of morphia, and he made it up fresh each day. Abundant testimony as to the production of inflammation and abscess from the above mentioned causes can be found in my little work on “Morphia Hypodermically.”