OPIATE ADDICTION IN THE MONKEY II. DILAUDID IN COMPARISON WITH MORPHINE, HEROINE AND CODEINE

¹ From the Department of Pharmacology of the University of Wisconsin, Madison

The addiction potentialities of morphine, heroine, dilaudid and codeine have been compared in the monkey during chronic poisoning of twenty-one months' duration.

The signs of abstinence are much more severe with heroine and morphine than with dilaudid when a ratio of dosage, comparable to that used in the clinic, is administered.

The convulsant action of codeine prevents the attainment of doses which are comparable to the other derivatives, so that little significance can be attached to the absence of the signs of abstinence with this drug in the monkey, as in all other animals.

Differences in the rapidity, intensity, and duration of action of the four drugs, during acute as well as chronic poisoning, are outlined and discussed in relation to addiction.

It is suggested that if the drugs be administered clinically on the basis of analgesic, rather than general narcotic action, the tendency to addiction with any of the derivatives would be reduced to a minimum.