Dr. A. P. Hayne, Medical Superintendent Inebriate Asylum, San Francisco, Cal., writes me: “There is no doubt but that its long continued use is one of the causes of insanity. I think I may safely say that several cases of this kind have fallen under my immediate observation, where chloral has been the remote or immediate cause of the disease.”
Dr. H. H. Doane,[66] of Litchfield, Ohio, reports a case where chloral produced, in an habituè, melancholia, with suicidal tendency.
The following interesting case history was sent me by Dr. Frank R. Fry, of St. Louis, Mo.:—
Patient, J. M., aged fifty-nine years. First used chloral eleven years ago. At that time he had been having some domestic troubles, had been drinking some—he says, not hard; he was unable to sleep, on account of these troubles and severe pains in the soles of his feet. His physician said they were not caused by rheumatism, but did not say by what. His physician prescribed him 15 grains of chloral in one ounce of water. Two teaspoonfuls of this solution, the prescribed dose, gave the patient some relief at first, but he immediately increased the dose to four teaspoonfuls. Does not remember exactly how soon, but very soon, he was taking from thirty-five to forty grains at a dose, every night, to obtain sleep. He increased the dose as fast as was necessary to obtain the continued desired effect, until he was taking eighty grains every night, and often a large dose during the daytime.
Six years ago he was in the City Insane Asylum, for three months. When he left there he felt very much better, and states positively that he used no chloral for a period of three years after that time.
He began the use of chloral again, subsequently, and for the last two and a half or three years he has been using it very steadily and in large doses. He does not take such large doses at present, but takes it much oftener than he did. Says the size and frequency of the dose are much of the time varied according to his means. He does not now pay any attention to the number of grains he is taking, as he used to, but he has a hard time, often, in getting enough to satisfy. He is also drinking to some extent now. Says he has tried to substitute alcohol and morphine for chloral, but has always fallen back to the latter.
He is now in bad health, suffers from dyspepsia and constipated bowels, and a generally debilitated condition. His father was a hard drinking man and his mother a very “nervous” person.
Dr. C. Pollock,[67] of Donnelsville, Ohio, reports the case of a physician, aged fifty. From twenty to sixty grains were used nightly for two years, with the result of producing loss of co-ordinating power, marked failure of memory, loquacity and intense despondency, and obstinate insomnia, only relieved by continued taking of the drug that had caused all his misfortune, and which brought on only a troubled slumber, laden with dreams horrible beyond description. The most prominent features of the case were his profound melancholia and extreme loquacity.
A somewhat similar case is reported by Dr. T. D. Crothers,[68] Superintendent Walnut Hill Inebriate Asylum, Hartford, Conn., the case ending fatally.
As in the opium and morphine habits, only more so, business is abandoned, friendship broken, family ties sundered, and unless relieved the victim sinks into a state of slobbering insanity or acute mania, finally ending in death through hemorrhage, exhaustion, or from the satisfaction of a suicidal tendency. Physical wrecks, guided by shattered mental rudders, they sink out of sight or go to pieces through accidents incident to their own self-produced restlessness.