Autopsies on imbeciles show an infantile development of the forebrain. Imprisonment does no good in these cases. They are not taught anything in prison, not even a trade, because the labour organisations and the protected industries will not permit prison labour. They should be confined so that they will not pervert youth and propagate their kind. It is impossible to say how far a given imbecile is morally accountable for what he does, but the accountability is not full in the best cases. A neurasthenic, however, is not to be mistaken for an imbecile. A neurasthenic person may have a tender conscience, an imbecile has no conscience. In imbecility the fault is in the will, rather than in the intellect, in the middle and highest grades. Many women, especially, that are hopeless fools intellectually have strong wills, but an imbecile never has a strong will except in the sense that stubbornness is strength. Stubbornness is perverted strength.
_Morphine and Cocaine Intoxication_,--Morphine, an alkaloid of opium, is used very extensively as an intoxicant. Since 1890 the importation of opium into the United States has increased fourfold, although physicians are now using less opium than they formerly did.
The insomnia, worry, moral distress, which bring on the alcoholic habit in some persons, lead to morphinism in others. Some physicians, by carelessly prescribing morphine for neuralgia, migraine, dysmenorrhoea, or any pain, make their patients slaves of this drug.
The degenerative effects of morphine are not so great nor so rapid as those of alcohol. It does not shorten life so much as alcohol does, nor are the children of a person addicted to the use of the drug so liable to idiocy and imbecility. The mind is enfeebled--slowly in some cases, rapidly in others. The patient will resort to almost any means to obtain the { 116} drug, if he is deprived of it. Authorities hold that he will lie without reason, merely for the perverse pleasure in deceiving, that he is uncertain and treacherous, with a dull conscience and morbid impulses. There are exceptions to this in cases where the drug is easily obtained by the patients. Opium and morphine diminish the sexual appetite in males, even to impotence. The bodily changes are slow but profound.