The dangers to be apprehended from the abuse of cocain are probably hardly yet quite realized, at least in this country. A great deal of harm has undoubtedly been done of recent years by the use of cocain as a help to break off the morphia habit. An exaggerated estimate of the assistance to be obtained from the former drug has been formed by such writers as Freund, and although Lewin and Erlenmeyer have warned us not to fly from Scylla to Charybdis, still it is to be feared that the notion lingers that cocain may be used advantageously and safely for this purpose. Nothing can be more mistaken. Cocain is more seductive than morphia; it fastens upon its victim more rapidly, and its hold is at least as tight. Cocain solutions are probably somewhat too freely prescribed in cases of disease of the nose and naso pharynx. Patients who use the drug in this way become very soon acquainted with its agreeable effects. Several cases have been recorded by American authors of cocain habit arising thus. That cocain has not been even more extensively misused is probably due to its being still a comparatively new drug, and also in part to its costliness. Up to the present time the largest number of its victims appear, unfortunately, to have been medical men.