Doctors valued this derivative of opium as a painkiller and a mood-enhancer, prescribing it for temporary relief of ailments as diverse as insomnia, bronchitis, and syphilis.
At age thirteen, Eugene O'Neill happened upon his mother as she was giving herself a morphine injection, and slowly he realized what his father and older brother, Jamie, had already known for years. Mrs. O'Neill felt mortified and accused Eugene of spying on her. She had been able to keep her secret from the family initially, and she fooled her friends by avoiding them or hiding her morphine-brightened eyes behind a veil when she left the house.
Like Mrs. O'Neill, the fictional Mary Tyrone was introduced to morphine after the complicated birth of her last son. In real life, that son was Eugene O'Neill, who later expressed his feelings of guilt in the character Edmund Tyrone. Mrs. O'Neill checked in and out of sanitariums for treatment, with limited success, but ultimately owed her recovery to the help of Carmelite nuns.
By 1912 the medical profession had circulated strong warnings against the indiscriminate use of morphine, and much less of it was being administered.
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