sanitariums and none had helped him, and every physician whom he
had consulted had declared his case as beyond any physical cure. I
decided to make the somewhat disproportionate sacrifice of time in
order to study whether even such an extreme case of morphinism is
accessible to psychotherapeutic treatment. Four months later, he
left my laboratory looking like an athlete, strong and vigorous,
joyful and energetic. For three weeks he had not received any
morphine, had good appetite, slept well, and had happily married.
As his wife was a trained nurse, she will take good care that no
new slip shall ever occur.

There was nothing remarkable in those four months of treatment. He
was easily hypnotized, and I hypnotized him at first every day,
then every second day, then every week. It was without difficulty
that I reduced the forty grains to about six grains a day. Then the
struggle began. To test the case as a strictly psychological
problem I left the effort entirely to his own will, that is, I did
not deprive him of the morphine supply but left the regulation in
his own hands. During that whole winter he had a bottle with a
thousand morphine tablets standing on his desk. Thus he would have
been entirely able to satisfy any craving, but by his own will he
followed my suggestions and never took more than I permitted. It
meant a terrible struggle. The tortures which he had to pass
through were perhaps worse than those which he had experienced at
the time of his lowest downfall. They came to a focus when he tried
to go from five grains to three grains a day and then again when
he approached half a grain. From there he had to move to a fourth
of a grain, then to an eighth, and even that had still to be
divided into four different doses which were then reduced to three,
to two, and finally to one dose and ultimately to injections of
warm water. A rapid increase in general strength and a return of
appetite for food began when he had reached the five grain limit. I
did not allow on any occasion the introduction of a substitute. On
the other hand, I added every day suggestions covering the various
secondary symptoms, especially the pains in the stomach and the
feelings of faintness and the emotional depression.

There, is no doubt that under favorable conditions,