Narcotic

a substance which has a stupefying or benumbing influence. Narcotics quiet the nerves. In medicine they are used to produce sleep or to relieve pain. The chief narcotic is opium with its preparations, known as morphine, laudanum, and paregoric. Opium contracts the eye; belladonna dilates the eye. Other narcotics are hops, henbane, stramonium, camphor, coffee, Indian hemp or hashish, and bromide of potassium. Soothing syrups, painkillers, anodyne liniments, and all similar preparations depend on some narcotic, frequently opium, for their efficiency. Children are particularly susceptible and should be given exceedingly small doses, if any. Alcohol in all its forms--ale, beer, wine, hard cider, rum, and whiskey--is a narcotic. As in the case of opium, the first effect of a small quantity is a temporary excitement. The final effect, if the dose be large enough, is to produce the peculiar helpless, languid stupor called drunkenness. The well known narcotic influence of tobacco is due chiefly to an essential oil called nicotine; though pure nicotine is a rank and dangerous poison. The trouble with the use of all narcotics is that the system becomes used to artificial soothing and demands more and more of it until the victim of a narcotic habit is enslaved. See Tobacco; Hashish; Opium