Odd Old News: The 1890’s Opiate Epidemic in Humboldt County

The Dope Fiends: Don’t be alarmed, gentlemen. We won’t take it from you all at once. We’ll taper you down gradually and after a while you’ll have confidence enough to yourselves to get along without it.[Image by Samuel D Ehrhart]

After having forcibly expelled all but a very few Chinese and their associated opium dens from Humboldt County by 1890, addictive drugs, of course, remained and there were still “those who are cursed by the devil-born habits of liquor, morphine, opium, tobacco and cigarettes” (and cocaine). Of these, morphine proved to be the most dangerous. Considered a new-fangled wonder drug by physicians of the 19th century, its injection was said to cure insomnia, asthma, headaches, alcoholics’ delirium tremens, gastrointestinal diseases and menstrual cramps.

Whereas the opium smoking habit was primarily taken up by “lower-class urban males, often neophyte members of the underworld,” the typical opiate addict in America before 1900 was an upper-class or middle-class white woman: ‘Owing to their delicate nervous organization, the habit finds the greatest number of its victims among women, although men too are not exempt. They take the deadly stuff whenever they feel depressed or have a slight ailment, and before they realize find themselves in the grasp of a practice which can but end in the grave.”(Humboldt Times 4/20/1899).

A short report in the September 13, 1903, Humboldt Times illustrated the awareness of the problem. It was entitled “Woman in an Unconscious Condition Found on Sidewalk. Upon Examination at the Hospital, Her Body was Discovered to be Covered with Scars, Caused by the Hypodermic Injection of Morphine…Facts Published as Warning to Other Women.”

The woman fainted. Image from the Humboldt Time 9/15/1903]

There were a surprising number of newspaper accounts of morphine overdoses and suicides in the Humboldt Times in the 1890’s. It was clearly the drug of choice for suicides. A powerful tool to block pain in the hands of competent doctors, its highly addictive nature also enmeshed many a doctor and nurse. Perhaps reaching its peak around 1895, morphine addiction tapered off coinciding with a golden age for pharmaceutical development at the end of the 19th century, and beginning of the 20th century. The advent of aspirin in 1899 provided an alternative for minor aches and pain. Increased public hygiene practices decreased gastro-intestinal complaints, resulting in less need for utilizing morphine’s effect on the bowels.

Opium’s history in the United States is as old as the nation itself. The opiate epidemic in American primarily started during the War of the Rebellion when opium was the commonly used means of killing pain. The Union Army alone issued about 10 million opium pills, in addition 2.8 million ounces of opium powders and tinctures were administered. Many a soldier came home from the war crippled and addicted.

Introduced into use in American in 1856, hypodermic needles were primarily used for injecting morphine by the 1870’s. By the 1890’s 1 in 200 were addicted to opiates, 60% of them women.

Medical journals began to increasingly descry the overuse of morphine injections: “Doctors who resort too quickly to the needle are lazy, they’re incompetent, they’re poorly trained, they’re behind the times.” Still, there was pressure on doctors from the wealthy seeking an end to pain, and from financial competition from other doctors who didn’t hesitate to administer morphine. State laws were passed between 1895 and 1915 ending the sale of opiates over the counter, and making it available only by prescription.

For some local incarcerated citizens of that time, there was a drug treatment program. By gradually diminishing the amount of morphine allowed, and lengthening the intervals between administering the drug, County Physician Foster largely broke their morphine habits. A reporter observed a group of “the county’s guests” working on the lawn of the County Courthouse, one of whom had months before been a “gaunt, hollow-eyed, corpse-like apparition, shuffling along the streets”, and now, post morphine, was looking quite healthy. After explaining that the county program was a way of giving drug addicts a chance to use their will power to stay free of the debasing drug and become “good and useful” citizens, the reporter continued: “But the chances are that it will be the old story. They will in all probability fail to profit by the chance offered, and in a month or two, perhaps sooner, will relapse into their old habits, and once more be classed as “fiends,”(Humboldt Times, 3/9/1893).

This week’s Odd Old News shares the sad tale of a morphine addict who happened into the camp of an Italian with two trained bears. His morphine supply having run out, the encounter amplified his delusions, and provoked panic, and a failed suicide attempt.

HANSON AFRAID OF BEARS
Daily Humboldt Times
August 13, 1896
He Attempted Suicide Rather Than be Eaten by Them
The two trained bears that are being exhibited about the country sides causing several runaways, smashups & incidental profanity along the roads, have been responsible for some thrilling bear stories by frightened travelers who have suddenly run into the Italian’s camp & now they must answer for one man’s attempted suicide.

This was Emanuel Hanson, the morphine fiend, who was recently examined as to his sanity & discharged. After his release Hanson, struck out southward into the farming country. Being away from his base of supplies his rations of “dope” became gradually less & about Tuesday his supply of the drug was entirely exhausted. At that time he was somewhere between Hookton and Indianola & toward evening, Tuesday, while on the verge of delirium from the want of his usual shot, he ran into the bear camp. The sight of the bears completed what the craving for the drug had commenced with a wild yell he leaped a fence & ran across the fields at the top of his speed, believing that he was pursued by the bears. The barking of the farmer’s dogs that he had aroused in his mad flight only increased his terror& he sped on until he dropped from exhaustion in a fence corner.

Here in his desperation & insane terror he determined to kill himself rather than be eaten alive by the bears & with his remaining strength he sought to sever the arteries of his arms. His knowledge of anatomy was at fault for instead of cutting in a vulnerable part he sawed a great gash across the right arm completely severing the bicep muscle, both cuts reached to the bone, but neither touching any important blood vessel. The instrument used was the stub of a broken cane knife, that had been picked up somewhere & from the fact that it had been ground to a point had evidently been used for paring vegetables. It was not very sharp & to cause the wounds inflicted with it, must have required considerable strength.
Hanson lay all night where he had dropped & would probably have died had he not been accidently discovered by Charles Thomas, owner of the field, yesterday morning. Mr. Thomas after temporarily dressing the wounds brought Hanson to Eureka & took him to the sheriff’s office, where County Physician Harris after sewing up the gashes sent the would-be suicide to the county hospital. When brought in Hanson was still out of his head & exceedingly weak from loss of blood but a generous “shot” of cocaine restored his faculties somewhat & enabled him to undergo the dressing of his self-inflicted wounds. Ordinarily his cuts would not be considered serious but in his emaciated condition & with his morphine poisoned system, the result is somewhat painful.

Earlier Odd and Old News:

There are many, but here are the most recent:

• School Ma’am Letters
• The Diary of a Young School Teacher— Part two
• In Which Plans for Ferndale’s Fourth of July Parade Created a Masterpiece of Rage Writing
• Odd Old News: The Tragic Wreck of the Columbia Near Shelter Cove in 1907
• Crusade Against Blind Pigs in Humboldt County
• Back to Nature Man in Trinity County
• Building the Northwestern Pacific Tracks South to Ft. Seward
• The Bug Catcher Lady
• Holy Rollers Take Garberville