who had an
inclination to smoke opium, on one occasion, and to sniff cocaine, on
another?

Suppose she had been better informed on the subject than she apparently
was. Suppose she happened to have a friend, who had been connected with
one of the state institutions for drug addicts, and this friend had told
her about the inmates--how hopeless and pitiful their degradation
was--how abject their slavery to the drug sensation for which they
continually yearned. No way has been found to cure them, because they
have no will to be cured. And the beginnings of the habit are so often
accidental and trivial--curiosity, or bravado, or carelessness on the
part of a practitioner. A Harvard college student, of good family, for
instance, was on a spree in Boston, with some friends--they went to an
opium joint and thought it would be fun to try the sensation. This
particular boy remained in the den twenty-four hours, under the
influence. That was the beginning--and the end. He went there again--he
got himself a lay-out--and is now a hopeless wreck in the state
institution, twenty-one years old. Another is a society woman who was
given a dose of heroin and that one dose proved sufficient for her
undoing. The craving for it came and she wanted more and more.

Or suppose some one had told her about a very remarkable case which came
to my attention, a number of years ago. Four young physicians were
associates on the staff of one of our leading medical institutions. A
considerable part of their time was devoted to research work and among
other things they started experimenting with the effects of cocaine,
which was a comparatively recent discovery. They were brilliant young
men of unusual character and promise, but all four succumbed to the
cocaine habit. The last of them died in pitiful degradation, within five
years of their first experiment.

Experience has shown that just as there are certain poisons which the
bodily functions are unable to resist, so there are certain drugs which
have the effect of sapping the will and distorting the judgment. The
craving which they leave in their wake may very easily become so
compelling that human nature cannot resist it.

So that if any society woman has sufficient understanding of the
subject, there is plenty of reason why she should dismiss an inclination
to try opium-smoking, or cocaine sniffing. The impulse is mere whim,
silly curiosity--the consequences may be degrading, terrible.

But i