C. (Charles) E. and A. (Albert) J. Patterson MD

.Below is a Article by CF Patterson MD, wrote for the Monthly Journal of Scientific Medicine

Also included is the directory for the hospitals

[Written for the Medical Brief]

Morphine Habit Facts.

BY C. F. PATTERSON M. D.

 Grand Rapid, Mich.

Have read with considerable interest the article of Dr. H. O. Wells, which appeared under the above heading in December number of BRIEF. Inasmuch as it is criticism on my article which appeared in October number of BRIEF, under the head of "Drug Habits Among Physicians," I ask the privilege of replying, and of making some comments on the Doctor's statements.

The Doctor, in his article, starts out as a good Samaritan, but, for the life of me, I can not see who he Is benefiting but himself, which I will try to point out ere I complete this article. He first criticizes me for saying the majority of my patients get Into the morphine habit through the effects of liquor. Gentle­men, I based my statements on an ex­perience of six years' special practice in this work, with from six to fifteen physicians under my care all the time for drug habits, the majority of whom contracted the habit, as before stated, first through the effects of liquor. He then makes some very slurring remarks in regard to 'my statement of the replies I received from an article which ap­peared in Summary, also the BRIEF, and says he refutes my statements. He then makes mention of some friend of his, having some article in a medical journal, from which he received one thousand letters, and that fully nineteen per cent of them was for self-assistance. Now, readers, I ask whose statement he is refuting, his own or mine? His story is certainly the larger. But the part of my article which seems to hurt him the worst is where I say home cures are frauds, but I again emphasize the state­ment that they are-all that I have ever learned of-frauds, and made only to sell; and furthermore, I defy or chal­lenge Dr. H. O. Wells, Secretary of Board of Health of Indiana, as he signs himself, to present any reliable statistics that will verify his statements that fifty-eight per cent of morphinism is cured with home cures, or twenty-five per cent, or even five per cent. With my experience in treating, now over three

hundred cases, by far the largest majority have used from one to six home cures without a cure having been effected in & single instance. I have &. letter in my possession, received within the past week, from a doctor who desires to come to me for treatment, who claims he has used a famous home cure, from Cincin­nati, for three years, and is now unable to attend to business at all, and taking as much morphine as ever when he leaves oft his home cure medicine .

The famous home-cure Husa is a fair sample of most of them, which medical journals were bound to expose, by some of them being caught by the wily. snare of its promoter, and Husa is only & fair sample of all of them, only it bas been exposed while others have not. Doctor, please tell ns of a home cure whose principal ingredient is not an opiate in some form or other. The Doctor says when he was in general practice he had no hesitation in taking and treating such a case at any time. Doctor, I ask how many cases did yon ever treat, and are they still living? I would like to visit some of them if they are. I would also like to ask the readers of the BRIEF who are not directly or indirectly inter­ested in some home cure, to state, through the columns of the BRIEF, how many you ever knew of being cured by any home cure who were once thor­oughly addicted to morphine? Then, again, I would ask Dr. H. O. Wells, in­asmuch as' he feels so kindly toward the profession, why he did not state, in his article, what he did to help a patient out of morphine so easily? Why did he not? Doctor, I will gladly give the readers of the BRIEF my plan of treatment for drug habits, and my home is ever open for the profession to visit and see for them­selves that there is one sanitarium that everyone who enters can be cured if they will do their part; that fully ninety per cent are cured, and I think I can show better than fifty-eight per cent who have remained cured. And, Doctor, as you are so in earnest to help the profession, I trust they may call for your plan of treatment through the BRIEF, which is such au easy matter, as you claim, and, should you fail to respond, trust they may view your article of criticism in the same sense as I do.