For the past twenty years I have devoted much time to the study of the Opium Habit in all its forms. During the war, and in an active practice since then, I have been favored with many opportunities for successfully observing opium cases. I have conversed and corresponded with thousands of victims of the habit and have thus been able to arrive at practical conclusions concerning the pathology and treatment of this disease. For many years I entertained the popular ideas of the profession upon this subject; but extended research and personal observations have given me a more accurate and certain knowledge of its nature and results.<br><br>It is because the habit is so little understood, and an urgent need exists for the latest scientific and medical information concerning it, that I have written the following pages. They contain no idle theories, but are replete with practical facts. I have written for the people as well as the profession, in the hope that the unwary may be fully warned against a vice which is so delusive and dangerous.<br><br>The members of the profession will, I trust, find in this volume a help in the treatment of opiumania and morphism; while to the myriad victims of the drug it will open a door of hope which will lead them into the perfect sunshine of liberty and health.