972
THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 16TH SEPTEMBER, 1893.
The numbers given above cannot be relied on.
The ostensible reason for taking Morphine is to get rid of the craving for opium; but even if a man doesn't want to do so he naturally prefers spending 3 or 4 cents on Morphia to 15 or 20 on opium.
The coolie class patronise these places. I should say that we won't be able to judge of the extent of this practice for another month or so. The writers put the number of people at between 1 and 2,000, who were no doubt all habitual opiumi smokers.
5th June, 1893.
́A. W. BREWIN.
(Report by the Police.)
CENTRAL POLICE STATION,
19th June, 1893.
CAPTAIN SUPERINTENDENT,
In accordance with instructions received from you and Mr. BUCKLE we have made inquiries regarding the use of Morphia injections.
The injections of Morphia are made with the object of curing persons of their opium-smoking habits and the method is said to have been instituted by one of Dr. KERR'S students in Canton. It was commenced in Hongkong on a small scale last year, but it is only within the last two or three months that it has attained to its present extensive use. There are in the Colony, including Aberdeen, Shaukiwan and Yaumati, about eighteen places in which about one thousand persons receive injections twice a day. There are a few, who no longer use it, who claim to have been completely cured of their opium-smoking habits by it; but others have tried it and afterwards gone back to opium-smoking.
A coolie who would smoke 5 or 6 cents' worth of opium a day only pays 1 cent for each injection, so that he saves 3 or 4 cents a day and obtains an equal effect, while at the same time he is getting cured of the opium smoking.
The Morphia used is purchased at the dispensaries as a powder at $40 a lb., by one or two men, who dissolve it in water and sell the solution to the injectors. These inject the liquid under the skin, at the muscles of the arms, with small hypodermic syringes, which are also purchased at the dispensaries. The operator begins on a patient with a big dose, which he decreases daily, or once in two days, for about a month, when the cure should be effected.
Few of those making the injections are even Chinese medical practitioners and none of them have had training under foreigners. The unrestricted use of such a drug by reckless and unqualified practitioners must be a great danger to the community and, like the unrestricted sale, seems to call for the imposition of some restriction as a safeguard. Whether Morphia in the shape of a powder comes under the Ordinance as a preparation of opium may be a question for the law officers to decide, or if the Opium Farmer wishes, he could take up a case as a
test case.
W. STANTON,
W. QUINCEY,
Inspectors.
(Minute by the Captain Superintendent of Police.)
Honourable COLONIAL TREASURER,
Report in accordance with your request.
F. H. M.
19.6.