A quarter gram of morphine.

[Audrey]

Patience please... I have not been here long. I imagine this has been discussed..... But please-- where do we get the idea that a quarter gram of morphine is not enough to affect a person's judgment and ability to remember facts, etc?

A quarter gram of morphine is 250mg.

_______________

According to: http://www.a1b2c3.com/drugs/opi005.htm

Medical Dosage: For moderate to severe pain the optimal intramuscular dosage is considered to be 10 mg per 70 kg body weight every four hours. The typical dose range is from 5 to 20 mg every four hours, depending on the severity of the pain. The oral dose range is between 8 and 20 mg; but with oral administration morphine has substantially less analgesic potency (approximately one-tenth of the effect produced by subcutaneous injection) because it is rapidly destroyed as it passes through the liver immediately after absorption. The intravenous route is employed primarily for severe post-operative pain or in an emergency; in this case the dose range is between 4 and 10 mg, and the analgesic effect ensues almost immediately.

Nonmedical Dosage: Irregular or intermittent users (who are not substituting the drug for another narcotic analgesic) may start and continue to use doses within the therapeutic range (e.i., up to 20 mg). However, regular users who employ morphine for its subjectively pleasurable effects frequently increase the dose as tolerance develops. To take several hundred milligrams per day is common, and there are reliable reports of up to four or five grams (4000 - 5000 mg) per day.
_________________________


According to the testimony sited in the "lost time" thread:

[Trial, volume 1, beginning page 327]:

Q. I understand you to say on Friday you directed that the bromo caffeine be given?
A. No, sir, Thursday.
Q. Not on Friday. You prescribed a second dose and took over from your office a bottle of it with directions how to be taken. I wish to know if, after that, you had occasion to prescribe for her on account of this mental distress and nervous excitement?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. When was it?
A. Friday.
Q. The next day?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Was the prescription or medicine the same as the other?
A. It was different.
Q. What was it?
A. Sulphate of morphine.
Q. Well, what is commonly called morphine?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. You directed morphine to be taken?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. In what doses?
A. One-eighth of a grain.
Q. When?
A. Friday night, at bed-time.
Q. The next day you changed that?
A. I did not change the medicine, but doubled the dose.
Q. That was on Saturday?
A. On Saturday.
Q. Did you continue the dose on Sunday?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Did you continue it Monday?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And on Tuesday?
A. Yes, sir.
_______
[Page 328]
Q. I ask you about the morphine that you were giving her and you tell me on Friday you gave one-eighth of a grain, which is the ordinary dose, I understand, mild dose, and on Saturday you doubled it, you gave it, sent it, and she had it on Monday and Tuesday, and how long did she continue to have that?
A. She continued to have that all the time she was in the station house.
Q. After her arrest, was it not?
A. And before.
Q. In other words she had it all the time up to the time of her arrest, the hearing and while in the station house?
A. Yes, sir.

________________________

Lizzie's dose was increased quickly. She was taking (if we decide to accept she took it) a lot of morphine!

We also have a thread where we speculate Lizzie has NPD. NPD people are more likely to have chemical addictions. IF she was NPD you think she wouldn't have taken her morphine?


Has anyone here ever taken morphine?

I had a kidney stone three years ago Halloween. The morning I was hospitalized for it I had gone out to cut corn stalks to decorate my stoop with. I was unable to do it and crawled back to my car and drove home. I went into the house and laid on the couch with one leg up over the back and the other on the coffee table. I was miserable. My mother in law came over and insisted I go to the hospital ER. We went. I was admitted and given a shot of morphine and a drip. Minutes later I was sitting up on the side of the gurney making what I thought to be charming remarks to the ER physician and acting the coquette. (OK-- normal behavior for me) I do not remember much about the overnight stay in the hospital. That morphine really knocks a person out....

[Audrey]

http://www.drug-sideeffects.com/morphine.htm

Morphine Side Effects

Morphine is a narcotic analgesic. Morphine was first isolated from opium in 1805 by a German pharmacist, Wilhelm Sertürner. Sertürner described it as the Principium Somniferum. He named it morphium - after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams. Today morphine is isolated from opium in substantially larger quantities - over 1000 tons per year - although most commercial opium is converted into codeine by methylation. On the illicit market, opium gum is filtered into morphine base and then synthesized into heroin.

Morphine side effects include but are not limited to:

anxiety

involuntary movement of the eyebal

l blurred vision / double vision

constipation "pinpoint" pupils

chills

depressed or irritable mood

itching

cramps

dizziness

rash

diarrhea

drowsiness

rigid muscles

inability to urinate

exaggerated sense of well-being

seizure

dreams

light - headedness

swelling due to fluid retention

dry mouth

nausea

tingling or pins and needles

facial flushing

sedation

tremor

fainting / faintness

sweating

uncoordinated muscle movements

floating feeling

vomiting

weakness

hallucinations

agitation

abdominal pain

headache

allergic reaction

abnormal thinking

high/low blood pressure

appetite loss

accidental injury

hives

apprehension

memory loss insomnia

[Harry]

Audrey asked:

Has anyone here ever taken morphine?

Like you Auds, sorry to say, I also had morphine for a kidney stone. In fact I've had it several times for that reason.

The dosages I received were intended to put me to sleep due to the severity of the pain. It worked in all cases. I have no idea what the dosage was. I'll have to see if it's on the paperwork I have somewhere around here.

What surprised me most was that it left no after effects when I woke up. No drowsiness, no disorientation, etc.

No where that I know does it say the dosage Lizzie received put her to sleep. It's been a while since I read that area though.

[FairhavenGuy]

I think that we're talking about 1/4 grain not 1/4 gram. A grain is 0.002285 ounce or .065 gram.

Bowen started Lizzie on one-eighth of a grain and doubled it to a quarter of a grain. This dosage was not to kill any pain, but simply to calm her nerves. It is a very minuscule amount and it was taken orally, which decreases its effectiveness.

Here it says that in a non-user, a 30 mg. dose of morphine can be fatal.
http://www.portfolio.mvm.ed.ac.uk/stude ... rphine.htm

[Haulover]

i've had morphine for broken ribs. and i take a morphine derivative for back pain about every 3 or 4 months for about a week at a time. (meaning the primary ingredient that "eats" the pain is morphine.)

audrey, i'm not sure what you're asking or suggesting. lizzie was not "knocked out." lizzie was thinking. she answered for reasons. she argued for reasons. she resisted for reasons. if you're talking about lizzie's inquest performance, please post an example and show where she was "stoned."

[Kat]

Thank you Audrey for the research!
Yes it has been discussed, but we always will be having new visitors who, like us, are interested.
I was only going to point out the grain vs. gram, like FairhavenGuy.
My personal opinion, which could change, would be that Lizzie would not take drugs the day of her testimony. Days of her testimonies, I should say.
Maybe she took it at night? But I'm not convinced she took it while on the stand. She just seems like a person who wants to be in control.
I could see her taking it in jail tho!
Nothing else to do after lights out in the early winter evenings!

I've had Demerol and I say life would be happier on Demerol!

I agree that a NPD person could be addicted to something and I've wondered if Lizzie was- knowingly, or unknowingly.

[Audrey]

OK..... Grain versus Gram. I see it! DUH! More research to do....

Lizzie stoned? Perhaps not stoned-- and please allow me to research the grain versus gram before making a statement! I may just eat my words! Of course admitting I need eye glasses would also help!

Onward...

Lizzie as the control freak. This I can accept easily but it leaves me with another question.

Why would she then walk into that inquest so unprepared? Stoned or sober-- right or wrong-- guilty or innocent-- she gave a terrible performance. Unless the whole thing was a smoke screen and she was crazy like a fox!

[Haulover]

***Why would she then walk into that inquest so unprepared? Stoned or sober-- right or wrong-- guilty or innocent-- she gave a terrible performance. Unless the whole thing was a smoke screen and she was crazy like a fox!***
____________________________

Audrey, that's a very good question. i don't know. i can think of two directions to go. that she did not expect to be questioned so intensively OR it was simply the best that anyone in her position could do.

here's something to ponder: if you had to place yourself away from the last murder, where else would you go but the barn? and was there a better reason than looking for sinkers? (i've never thought of one. lizzie herself worked on it a bit, having started with a piece of iron to fix a screen.)

[FairhavenGuy]

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I think that Lizzie and Emma were quite "protected" from a lot of the real world. The detail and intensity of the inquest questioning, I think, was something of a surprise to her. In polite society, one doesn't pry into other peoples' business, after all, and she was a Borden.

I think many people would be surprised by how well the police and prosecutors can do their jobs. Most wrong-doers feel they can easily outsmart the authorities. . .and they end up getting caught and convicted.

Once she was caught, Lizzie had the best defense lawyers money could buy. And they kept her testimony out of the trial.

[Audrey]

[quote="Haulover @ Sat May 22, 2004 3:54 am
here's something to ponder: if you had to place yourself away from the last murder, where else would you go but the barn? and was there a better reason than looking for sinkers? (i've never thought of one. lizzie herself worked on it a bit, having started with a piece of iron to fix a screen.)[/quote]

Good point. There are three places to be. The house, the yard or the barn. There was a body on two of the three floors Lizzie could conceivably be on in the house.

She couldn't say things like "I was on the south lawn sitting in the gazebo reading aloud to Maggie all morning".

[Audrey]

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I think that Lizzie and Emma were quite "protected" from a lot of the real world. The detail and intensity of the inquest questioning, I think, was something of a surprise to her. In polite society, one doesn't pry into other peoples' business, after all, and she was a Borden.

I think many people would be surprised by how well the police and prosecutors can do their jobs. Most wrong-doers feel they can easily outsmart the authorities. . .and they end up getting caught and convicted.

Once she was caught, Lizzie had the best defense lawyers money could buy. And they kept her testimony out of the trial.

People do have a "prove it" mentality.

As far as the polite society-- some of this mentality did protect Lizzie. She may very well have been able to dispose of evidence by "having fleas"

[Kat]

And she may have thought the officials would leave that question alone- she may have depended upon it. Dr. Bowen's only words on the subject was that he believed the pail to be just what Lizzie said it was. No questions, no explanations- and then later that pail and it's contents were talked about, questioned about, given in statements multiple times! And still not enough science at the time to figure out the blood!

[Nancie]

and yet there was not a hatchet in the pail?
I'm sure the police officers "checked the pail" for
a hatchet! No weapon left behind, no blood on Lizzie, not a hair out of place. Clean hands even!
I don't think the fact that Lizzie might have been having her period has a great deal to do with this case. PMS, another story! If Lizzie was PMSing, I
would totally change my whole opinion of the case.

[FairhavenGuy]

There is certainly the possibility of a weapon left behind. There is both the hatchet head with the broken handle and the hatchet discovered a long while later on the roof of a neighboring building.

There was much less blood spattered than most people can imagine, and the blood evidence at the scene seems to show most of the blood spatters away from where the assailant is. (Blood on the wall behind where Andrew's head was on the sofa, etc.)

I know that Victoria Lincoln's account has been shown to have flaws, but one thing she points out that I feel is valid is that Lizzie's hands should not have been clean if she'd been fishing around in the barn for sinkers. (Not to mention discovering her father's bloody body. No matter how horrible the scene, I can't imagine not rushing to a hurt loved one and trying to help in some way, especially if one doesn't know if the person is dead or not.) The lack of dust, dirt or blood on Lizzie can be considered more damning than not.

[Kat]

I have heard the reservation of some that think *those things like menstruation* were not talked about in those days and certainly not examined.
That pail was examined and discussed at the time. The doctors thought the hatchet was long-handled, for "Leverage"- so that would mean it wouldn't fit in the pail anyway.

In the book, Fall River, And Authenic Narrative, by Catherine Williams, written originally in 1833, she is discussing the death of Sarah Cornell and since a pregnancy features in the killing, the trial of Rev. Avery dwelled upon Sarah's menses and when she had it and how it could be proved or disproved. This was in court in 1833! I had always maintained that in a court case, if a person was being tried for the death penalty, this stuff was brought out because it was important to the case.

On the Colonial Times PBS show on TV right now- also- they showed the men working to build a house for a newcomer family and they talked about how the hatchet heads were always breaking off the handles with hard use.

[Nancie]

I think Lizzie had no clue what she was in for at the
inquest, as Fairhavenguy says the officials were well
prepared. Lizzie was always protected by Daddy, going through an ordeal like that must have been
torture, no wonder she had headaches. I don't see
any evidence that she was whacked out on morphine, I suspect her dosage was equal to the asprins we take today. ?

[Kat]

Did Lizzie have headaches?
Is that from Lincoln?
I ask that because If I'm not familiar with it I usually think it's from Lincoln.

[Kat]

It's interesting to imagine a Lizzie who might have thought she could out-talk or out-maneuver the state prosecutor! I wouldn't even think that and I know one!

[Audrey]

Did Lizzie have headaches?
Is that from Lincoln?
I ask that because If I'm not familiar with it I usually think it's from Lincoln.

Don't you just imagine Lizzie brimming with good health? If she got headaches I would wager they were environmentally induced versus an underlying health problem.

[Kat]

I usually imagine Lizzie as strong and healthy physically- so I guess so-
I also imagine Emma as having a peptic ulcer!
She sure outlived Lizzie tho...Emma must have been doing something right?

[Kat]

I'm back to the *headaches*. Was it Sarah who had a reputation for headaches or was this part of Lincoln and the seizure theory?
Does anybody know?

[Audrey]

I read somewhere that it was Sarah-- but it was probably in Lincoln!

[Audrey]

Found it!

Lincoln, page 36


Lizzie's mother died when she was two. Her name was Sarah Morse; when Lizzie's ancestry was studied for evidence of possible hereditary insanity, none was discovered, merely the fact that Sarah suffered from severe migraines and seizures of apparently unmotivated rage.

[doug65oh]

Lincoln, page 36


...merely the fact that Sarah suffered from severe migraines and seizures of apparently unmotivated rage.

Those symptoms actually sound quite a bit like some form of epilepsy...specifically the seizures...

[FairhavenGuy]

Lizzie having some form of epilepsy is Lincoln's main premise. I think she called it epilepsy of the temporal lobe. Unfortunately, Lincoln cites lots of whispered gossip and talk without offering anything more substantial to back it up.

[doug65oh]

True...
Credibility is the only problem with that.

[augusta]

Thanks for the post on how much a "grain" is, Fairhaven Guy. I have been in search of this for years, and I have finally found an answer.

I had pneumonia last winter/spring, and I was put on some cough syrup that had morphine in it. Didn't do a thing to me. Great for the cough, tho.

I was in the ER for internal bleeding last summer, and before I went home a nurse gave me a morphine-based shot. Wow! In about ten seconds I could FEEL it running down to my toes. I felt really, really drunk. I have no idea exactly what it was or how much. I was flyin' on that stuff. I remember telling myself I should act normal or they'd wheel me off to the psych ward. I didn't sleep when I got home. I couldn't wait for it to wear off. Yuck.

I wonder, too, if Lizzie was addicted to morphine. And if she was on it the whole ten months in jail, would her dose have to be increased because she would need more to calm her after taking the same dosage for so long. I think at the least, Dr. Bowen had to taper her off of it after the trial.

But when she lived in Maplecroft, she writes the note to her neighbor about shutting up his bird - and she mentioned she was nervous. Maybe she took something for her nerves sometimes, or all the time. After the tragedy of the murders, whether innocent or guilty, she might have been agitated afterwards for the rest of her life.

Audrey mentions Lizzie being uprepared for the Inquest. Well, I think to a point she was. But remember, she did have Jennings there. He was not actually counseling her in the courtroom, but he was there the whole time - I think he might have been out in the hall. I am sure he told her pretty much what to say. At that point, I can picture him saying, "Just tell the truth, Lizzie." I think he believed in her innocence.

Kat - Interesting post about the tv show that mentioned their axe handles always breaking. Hmm.

Fairhaven Guy - Yes, that's true, isn't it - if Lizzie was in the barn she wouldn't have had such clean hands. And if she did have blood on her it would be understandable. I, however, would not have rushed up to Andrew as he was on the couch, the eyeball hanging out and all. In fact, I don't understand how Lizzie could possibly be so calm after seeing that. Sure, she didn't show her feelings much. But that would be something that kinda surpassed the control one would have over one's demeanor. I'm not a cryer or screamer by nature, but I think I would have been a-screamin' if I saw THAT. No, I wouldn't have gone up to him, unless I was temporarily irrational.

[Curryong]

Some interesting posts on here both about morphine, with which Bowen dosed Lizzie, Lincoln and other matters.

[debbiediablo]

I think that we're talking about 1/4 grain not 1/4 gram. A grain is 0.002285 ounce or .065 gram.

Bowen started Lizzie on one-eighth of a grain and doubled it to a quarter of a grain. This dosage was not to kill any pain, but simply to calm her nerves. It is a very minuscule amount and it was taken orally, which decreases its effectiveness.

Here it says that in a non-user, a 30 mg. dose of morphine can be fatal.
http://www.portfolio.mvm.ed.ac.uk/stude ... rphine.htm

Bowen's prescription for Lizzie was not miniscule.

1 grain = 0.06479891 grams
1/4 grain = 0.01619974 grams
0.01619974 grams = 16.19974 mg

Now consider this: Morphine is indicated only for control of moderate to severe pain. Standard initial treatment is 30 mg. once a day, extended release, for the opioid naïve. So Lizzie was receiving half the morphine taken to manage moderate to severe pain (I took 30 mg twice daily to control pain for the first three days directly following knee replacement surgery which is pretty darn painful). And it had some fairly extreme side effects for me. Lizzie was receiving half this amount once a day which would be enough to attract the attention of the DEA and pharmaceutical examiners in 2015. Over time this much morphine delivered in absence of pain is enough to cause addiction.

[taosjohn]

Lizzie was receiving half this amount once a day which would be enough to attract the attention of the DEA and pharmaceutical examiners in 2015. Over time this much morphine delivered in absence of pain is enough to cause addiction.

Even in the presence of pain.

My father was badly burned once, and was on buckets of the stuff during the debriding process. Once healed enough to be releasable, he had to go through a detox process too...

[Curryong]

Bowen visited Lizzie in jail at Taunton, apparently. During that time on remand she was pretty depressed. He was probably dosing her up then as well, not that it really mattered because she didn't testify at her trial. I'm wondering though, whether he had been treating her for depression before the murders, perhaps giving her some morphine-based concoction of his own mixing. Ive never been suspicious of old Bowen being involved in the murders as such, but there's no denying he is a player in this drama.

[twinsrwe]

Bromide compounds, were frequently used as sedatives in the 19th and early 20th century. Their use in over-the-counter sedatives and headache remedies in the United States extended to 1975, when bromides were withdrawn as ingredients, due to chronic toxicity.

Bromides were most widely used in the second half of the 19th century, either as sedatives or as a treatment for epilepsy. (I wonder if Victoria Lincoln got the idea of Lizzie having epileptic seizures from Dr. Bowen giving her Bromo-caffeine? Hmmmm.) Bromide has sedative and anticonvulsant properties. Caffeine is a stimulant to the central nervous system.

So, Dr. Bowen gave Lizzie a compound drug containing both a stimulant and a sedative on Thursday to quiet her nervous excitement and headache. Then, he changed to Morphine on Friday.

Morphine is primarily used to treat both acute and chronic severe pain. It is commonly used in hospice facilities as an end of life comfort medication. Comfort care is an essential part of medical care at the end of life. When a patient nears death, the goal of care changes from cure to comfort, and relieving symptoms is one of the most valuable contributions healthcare professionals can offer. The goal is to prevent or relieve suffering as much as possible while respecting the dying person’s wishes.

So, what physical pain was Lizzie experiencing? A headache? Anxiety? Maybe her arms and shoulders were sore from swinging that hatchet 29 times!!!

While doing the research on Bromo-caffeine I ran across another thread on our forum that pertains to Bromo-caffeine and Morphine. I found the research that was done by Allen very interesting. Check it out: http://tinyurl.com/lvkmbq3

[Curryong]

Oh, yes twins, thanks for posting that! It was an interesting thread!

By the way, can you remember it being mentioned anywhere that Lizzie complained of having a headache that Thursday afternoon? I know she didn't feel faint. I somewhere remember reading, and maybe it was in Lincoln (that woman was so imaginative,) that Bowen saw Lizzie's cheeks going a sort of mottled pink flush and decided to persuade her to lie down. He then staved off her hysteria by dosing her with a sedative.

On another subject, one of the posters on that thread suggested that a police doctor should have checked to make sure that Lizzie really did have a period at the time of the murders. No doctor in those days, whether it was a prison doctor, personal physician or whatever, would have checked out whether a middleclass woman was having her menses or not, and the woman would have died rather than allow a male, whether he was her doctor or not, to see her in that condition.

If it was absolutely necessary, a police or prison matron (female) would have done the honours. However, I remember reading in testimony when the rags in the pail thing came up it was stated that Lizzie's period had finished on the Wednesday so if she had been examined on the Thursday there wouldn't have been any evidence either way anyway.

[irina]

I remember Lincoln saying something about Lizzie having migraine and Lincoln is the first place I had read that Lizzie's mom had migraine. I remember it because my mom had it bad and now I do also. Lincoln's big thing was that migraine and epilepsy are similar (true) and that Lizzie had partial seizures wherein she has a "brown out". I have long had the opinion Lizzie had a headache that day but when I read all the evidence and testimony, etc. I don't pick up on that at all. All I see is the vague bit about Lizzie having not felt well for a day or two but that she felt better, whatever that means.

We mentioned before that young women living together tend to synchronize monthly periods. We know Bridget had a headache/migraine that day~perhaps a "menstrual migraine"? I know she testified or commented that she didn't know anything about the pail & would have washed the contents had it been there on Tuesday. But can we really say that some of those "rags" weren't Bridget's? I would assume all of them would have been vague about the matter while they let Dr. Bowen explain it all to the male police officers who were apparently ignorant of these matters.

[Curryong]

Who knows whether Bridget was telling the truth about the pail of rags, although it's rather odd that Lizzie would have claimed them as hers (to Dr Bowen) if they hadn't been. If they were Lizzie's they seem to have been hanging about for a couple of days in her room if they weren't in the cellar. Whew!!

The great majority of speculation on the Forum has always been, hasn't it, whether (a) the hatchet could have been hidden in the pail, and (b) could blood from the crime have been wiped up with the rags/towels?

Without going into gross minute details I've always been puzzled by just how blooded these towels were. Even with a very heavy menstruation, surely the last couple of days of Lizzie's period wouldn't have produced huge amounts of blood?

Perhaps you're right and they were Bridget's, who just dropped hers in the same pail, finished a couple of days later than Lizzie and was too embarrassed to tell anyone what she'd done!

[MysteryReader]

Migraines and epilepsy are NOT similar. A person has seizures with epilepsy and not with a migraine. In Parallel Lives, there is a picture of the cellar and there are plenty of places to hide a pail of bloody rags and to hide a hatchet. I just wonder if perhaps the hatchet could have been hid deep in the cellar without being found? I've not seen any modern pictures of the cellar so who knows what changes were made.