"H. M. C." AND DRUG ADDICTION

To the Editor:  —The more or less discredited "twilight sleep" has been largely applied in this country through the medium of a proprietary tablet known as "H. M. C." and composed of "hyoscin" (scopolamin) morphin and cactin. The cactin is negligible in the formula, and the product would probably be improved were it omitted from the mixture; but "H. M. C." is a name readily remembered, and the product must be credited with marked activity.That this proprietary might be habit-inducing did not occur to me until recently, when I noticed from our drug reports how frequently prescriptions for original packages of it appear. A certain degree of tolerance to scopolamin is produced, but it is not generally regarded as habit-inducing. It appears in our work, however, that an addict to heroin will readily come to tolerate quite considerable doses of scopolamin and, indeed, the heroin addicts when deprived of