More than an entire year has now passed, in which I have done little else than to put the preceding details into shape from brief memoranda made at the time of the experiment. While the physical agony ceased almost immediately after the opium was abandoned, the irritation of the system still continues. I do not know how better to describe my present state than by the use of language which professional men may regard as neither scientific nor accurate, but which will express, I hope, to unprofessional readers the idea I wish to convey, when I say that the entire system seems to me not merely to have been poisoned, but saturated with poison. Had some virus been transfused into the blood, which carried with it to every nerve of sensation a sense of painful, exasperating unnaturalness, the feeling would not, I imagine, be unlike what I am endeavoring to indicate.
ADDENDA.—At the time of writing the preceding narrative I had supposed that the entire story was told, and that the intelligent reader, should this record ever see the light, would naturally infer, as I myself imagined would be the case, that the unnatural condition of the body would soon become changed into a state of average health. In this I was mistaken. So tenacious and obstinate in its hold upon its victim is the opium disease, that even after the lapse of ten years its poisonous agency is still felt. Without some reference to these remoter consequences of the hasty abandonment of confirmed habits of opium-eating, the chief object of this narrative as a guide to others (who will certainly need all the information on the subject that can be given them) would fail of being secured. While unquestionably the heaviest part of the suffering resulting from such a change of habit belongs to the few weeks in which the patient is abandoning opium, it ought not to be concealed that this brief period by no means comprises the limit within which he will find himself obliged to maintain the most rigid watch over himself, lest the feeling of desperation which at times assaults him from the hope of immediate physical restoration disappointed and indefinitely postponed, should drive him back to his old habits. Indeed, with some temperaments, the greatest danger of a relapse comes in, not during the process of abandonment, but after the habit has been broken. Great bodily pain serves only to rouse up some natures to a more earnest strife, and, as their sufferings become more intense, the determination not to yield gains an unnatural strength. The mind is vindicating itself as the master of the body. While in this state, tortures and the fagot are powerless to extort groans or confessions from the racked or half-consumed martyr. Many a sufferer has borne the agony of the boots or the thumb-screw without flinching, whose courage has given way under the less painful but more unendurable punishment of prolonged imprisonment. In the one case all a man's powers of resistance are roused; he feels that his manhood is at stake, and he endures as men will endure when they see that the question how far they are their own masters, is at issue. There are, I think, a great number of men and women who would go unflinchingly to the stake in vindication of a principle, whose resolution, somewhere in the course of a long, solitary, and indefinite imprisonment, would break down into a discreditable compromise of opinions for which they were unquestionably willing to die.
In the same way a man will for a time endure even frightful suffering in relinquishing a pernicious habit, while he may fail to hold up his determination against the assaults of the apparently never-ending irritation, discomfort, pain, and sleeplessness which may be counted on as being, sometimes at least, among the remoter consequences of the struggle in which he has engaged. I wish it, however, distinctly understood that I do not suppose that the experience of others whose use of opium had been similar to my own, would necessarily correspond to mine in all or even in many respects. Opium is the Proteus of medicine, and science has not yet succeeded in tearing away the many masks it wears, nor in tracing the marvellously diversified aspects it is capable of assuming. Among many cases of the relinquishment of opium with which I have been made acquainted, nothing is more perplexing than the difference of the specific consequences, as they are exhibited in persons of different temperaments and habits. For such differences I do not pretend to account. That is the business of the thoroughly educated physician, and no unprofessional man, however wide his personal experience, has the right to dogmatize or even to express with much confidence settled opinions upon the subject. My object will be fully attained if I succeed in giving a just and truthful impression of the more marked final consequences of the hasty disuse of opium in this single case, leaving it to medical men to explain the complicated relations of an opium-saturated constitution to the free and healthy functions of life.
In my own case, the most marked among the later consequences of the disease of opium, some of which remain to the present time and seem to be permanently engrafted upon the constitution, have been these:
1. Pressure upon the muscles of the limbs and in the extremities, sometimes as of electricity apparently accumulated there under a strong mechanical force.
2. A disordered condition of the liver, exhibiting itself in the variety of uncomfortable modes in which that organ, when acting irregularly, is accustomed to assert its grievances.
3. A sensitive condition of the stomach, rejecting many kinds of food which are regarded by medical men as simple and easy of digestion.
4. Acute shooting pains, confined to no one part of the body.
5. An unnatural sensitiveness to cold.
6. Frequent cold perspiration in parts of the body.
7. A tendency to impatience and irritability of temper, with paroxysms of excitement wholly foreign to the natural disposition.
8. Deficiency and irregularity of sleep.
9. Occasional prostration of strength.
10. Inaptitude for steady exertion.
I mention without hesitancy these consequences of the abandonment of opium, from the belief that any person really in earnest in his desire to relinquish the habit will be more likely to persevere by knowing at the start exactly what obstacles he may meet in his progress toward perfect recovery, than by having it gradually revealed to him, and that at times when his body and mind are both enfeebled by what he has passed through. With a single exception, the dismost serious one I have been obliged to encounter. Whether it is one of the specific effects of the disuse of opium, or only one of the many general results of a disordered constitution, I do not know.
I can only say in my own case, that after the lapse of years, this particular difficulty is not wholly overcome. This electric condition, so to call it, still continues a serious annoyance. But when it occurs, the pain is of less duration, and gradually, but very slowly, is of diminished frequency. Violent exercise will sometimes relieve it; a long walk has often the same effect. The use of stimulants brings alleviation for a time, but there seems to be no permanent remedy except in the perfect restoration of the system by time from this effect of the wear and tear of opium upon the nerves. Irregularity in the action of the liver, while singularly marked in the earlier stages of the experiment, and continuing for years to make its agency manifestly felt, is in a considerable degree checked and controlled by a judicious use of calomel.
The condition of the digestive organs is less impaired than I should have supposed possible, judging from the experience of others. A moderate degree of attention to the quality of what is eaten, with proper care to avoid what is not easily digested, with the exercise of habitual self-control in respect to quantity, suffices to prevent, for the most part, all unendurable feelings of discomfort in this part of the system. Whether the habitually febrile condition of the mouth, and the swollen state of the tongue, is referable to a disturbed action of the stomach or of the liver I can not say. It is certain that none of the effects of opium-eating are more marked or more obstinately tenacious in their hold upon the system than these. I barely advert to the frequent impossibility of retaining some kinds of food upon the stomach, which has been one unpleasant part of my experience, because I doubt whether this return of a difficulty which began in childhood has any necessary connection with the use of opium. For many years before I knew any thing of the drug I had been a daily sufferer from this cause. Indeed the use of opium seemed to control this tendency, and it was only when the remedy was abandoned that the old annoyance returned. For a few months the stomach rejected every kind of food; but in less than a year, and subsequently to the present time, this has been of only occasional ocurrence.
I am also at a loss how far to connect the disuse of opium with the lancinating pains which have troubled me since the time to which I refer. These pains began long before I had recourse to opium, they did not cease their frequent attacks while opium was used, nor have they failed to make their potency felt since opium was abandoned. While it is not improbable that the neuralgic difficulties of my childhood might have remained to the present time, even if I had never made use of opium, I think that the experience of all who have undergone the trial shows that similar pains are invariably attendant upon the disuse of opium. How long their presence might be protracted with persons not antecedently troubled in this way, is a question I can not answer. I infer from what little has been recorded, and from what I have learned in other ways, that the reforming opium-eater must make up his mind to a protracted encounter with this great enemy to his peace. That the struggle of others with this difficulty will be prolonged as mine has been I do not believe, unless they have been subjected for a lifetime to pains connected with disorder in the nervous system.
The unnatural sensitiveness to cold to which I have alluded is rather a discomfort than any thing else. It merely makes a higher temperature necessary for enjoyment, but in no other respect can it be regarded as deserving special mention. With the thermometer standing at 80° to 85° the sensation of agreeable warmth is perfect; with the mercury at 70° or even higher, there is a good deal of the feeling that the bones are inadequately protected by the flesh, that the clothing is too limited in quantity, and in winter that the coal-dealer is hardly doing you justice.
The cold perspiration down the spine, which was so marked a sensation during the worst of the trial, has not yet wholly left the system, but is greatly limited in the extent of surface it affects and in the frequency of its return.
The tendency to impatience and irritability of temper to which I have adverted is by far the most humiliating of the effects resulting from the abandonment of opium. Men differ very widely both in their liability to these excesses of temper as well as in their power to control them; but under the aggravations which necessarily attend an entire change of habit, this natural tendency, whether it be small or great, to hastiness of mind is greatly increased. So long as the disturbing causes remain, whether these be the state of the liver or the stomach, or a want of sufficient sleep, or the excited condition of the nervous system, the patient will find himself called upon for the exercise of all his self-control to keep in check his exaggerated sensibility to the daily annoyances of life.
Intimately connected with the preceding is the frequent recurrence of sleepless nights, which seem invariably to attend upon the abandonment of the habit. Possibly some part of this state of agitated wakefulness may pertain to the natural temperament of the patient, but this tendency is greatly aggravated by the condition of the nerves, so thoroughly shattered by the violent struggle to oblige the system to dispense with the soothing influence of the drug upon which it has so long relied. Whatever method others may have found to counteract this infirmity, I have been able as yet to find no remedy for it. Especially are those nights made long and weary which precede any long continuance of wet weather. A moist condition of the atmosphere still serves the double purpose of setting in play the nervous sensibilities, and, as a concomitant or a consequence, of greatly disturbing, if not destroying sleep.
In connection with this matter something should be said on the subject of dreaming, to which De Quincey has given so marked a prominence in his "Confessions" and "Suspiris de Profundis." In my own case, neither when beginning the use of opium, nor while making use of it in the largest quantities and after the habit had long been established, nor while engaged in the painful process of relinquishing it, nor at any time subsequently, have I had any experience worth narrating of the influence of the drug over the dreaming faculty. On the contrary, I doubt whether many men of mature age know so little of this peculiar state of mind as myself. The conditions in this respect, imposed by my own peculiarities of constitution, have been either no sleep sufficiently sound as to interfere with the consciousness of what was passing, or mere restlessness, or sleep so profound as to leave behind it no trace of the mind's activity. While it is therefore certain that this exaggeration of the dreaming faculty is not necessarily connected with the use of opium, but is rather to be referred to some peculiarity of temperament or organization in De Quincey himself, I find myself in turn at a loss to know how far to regard other phenomena to which I have previously alluded as the natural and necessary consequences of opium, or how far they may be owing to peculiarities of constitution in myself. Opium-eaters have said but little on the subject. The medical profession, so far as I have conversed with them, and I have consulted with some of the most eminent, are not generally well informed on any thing beyond the specific effects of the drug as witnessed in ordinary medication. In the absence of sufficient authority, it may be safer to say that the remoter consequences of the disuse of opium consist in a general disorder and derangement of the nervous system, exhibiting itself in such particular symptoms as are most accordant with the temperament, constitutional weaknesses, and personal idiosyncrasies of the patient. That some considerable suffering must be regarded as unavoidable seems to be placed beyond question from the nature of the trial to which the body has been subjected, as well as from what little has been said on the subject by those who have relinquished the habit.
I close this brief reference to the remoter consequences of the habits of the opium-eater by calling the attention of the reader to the physical weakness with consequent inaptitude for continuous exertion which forms a part of my own experience. Unable as I am to refer it to any immediate cause, frequent and sudden prostration of strength occurs, accompanied by slight dizziness, impaired sight, and a sense of overwhelming weakness, though never going to the extent of absolute faintness. Its recurrence seems to be governed by no rule. It sometimes comes with great frequency, and sometimes weeks will elapse without a return. Neither the state of the weather, nor any particular condition of the body, appears to call it out. It sometimes is relieved by a glass of water, by the entrance of a stranger, by the very slightest excitement, and it sometimes resists the strongest stimulants and every other attempt to combat it. I can record nothing else respecting this visitant except that its presence is always accompanied with a singular sensation in the stomach, and that the entire nervous system is affected by its attack.
The inaptitude for steady exertion is not merely the consequence of this occasional feeling of exhaustion, but is for a time the inevitable result of the accumulated pain and weakness to which his system, not yet restored to health, is still subject. This impatience of continued application to work, which is common to all opium-eaters, and which does not cease with the abandonment of the habit, seems to result in the first case from some specific relation between the drug and the meditative faculties, promoting a state of habitual reverie and day-dreaming, utterly indisposing the opium-user for any occupation which will disturb the calm current of his thoughts, and in the other, proceeding from the direct disorder of the nervous organization itself. Strange as it may seem, the very thought of exertion will often waken in the reforming opium-eater acute nervous pains, which cease only as the purpose is abandoned. In other cases, where there is no special nervous suffering at the time, work is easy and pleasant even beyond what is natural.
One effect of opium upon the mind deserves to be mentioned; its influence upon the faculty of memory. The logical memory, De Quincey says, seems in no way to be weakened by its use, but rather the contrary. His own devotion to the abstract principles of political economy; the character of Coleridge's literary labors between the years 1804-16, when his use of opium was most inordinate; together with the cast of mind of many other well-known opium-eaters, confirms this suggestion of De Quincey. His further statement that the memory of dates, isolated events, and particular facts, is greatly weakened by opium, is confirmed by my own experience. However physiologists may explain this fact, a knowledge of it may not be without its use to those who desire to be made thoroughly acquainted with all the consequences of the opium habit.
If to these discomforts be added a prevailing tendency to a febrile condition of body, together with permanent disorder in portions of the secretory system, the catalogue of annoyances with which the long-reformed opium-eater may have to contend is completed. This statement is not made to exaggerate the suffering consequent upon the disuse of opium, but is made on the ground that a full apprehension of what the patient may be called upon to go through will best enable him to make up his mind to one resolute, unflinching effort for the redemption of himself from his bad habits.
So far as the body is concerned, there is much in my experience which induces me to give a general assent to the opinion expressed by a medical man of great reputation whom I repeatedly consulted in reference to the discouraging slowness of my own restoration to perfect health. "I can not see," he said, "that your constitution has been permanently injured; but you were a great many years getting into this state, and I think it will take nearly as many to get you out of it."
It may not be amiss to add that those opium-eaters whose circumstances exempt them from harassing cares, who meet only with kindness and sympathy from friends, and who have resources for enjoyment within themselves, have in respect to these subsequent inconveniences greatly the advantage of those whose position and circumstances are less fortunate.
These free and almost confidential personal statements have been made, not without doing some violence to that instinctive sense of propriety which prompts men to shrink from giving publicity to their weaknesses and from the vanity of seeming to imply that their individual experience of life is of special value to others. Leaving undecided the question whether under any circumstances a departure from the general rule of good sense and good taste in such matters is justifiable, I have, nevertheless, done what I could to give to opium-eaters a truthful statement of the consequences that may ensue from their abandonment of the habit. The path toward perfect recovery is certainly a weary one to travel; but in all these long years, with nervous sensibilities unnaturally active, in much pain of body, through innumerable sleepless nights, with hope deferred and the expectation of complete restoration indefinitely prolonged, I have never lost faith in the final triumph of a patient and persistent resolution. Many men seem to know little of the wonderful power which simple endurance has, in determining every conflict between good and evil. The triumph which is achieved in a single day is a triumph hardly worth the having; but when all impatience, unreasonableness, weaknesses and vanities have been burned out of our natures by the heat of suffering; when the resolution never falters to endure patiently whatever may come in the endeavor to measure one's own case justly, and exactly as it is; and when time has been allowed to exert its legitimate influence in calming whatever has been disturbed and correcting whatever has been prejudiced, a conscious strength is developed far beyond what is natural to men possessed only of ordinary powers of endurance. It is chiefly through patient waiting that the confirmed victim of opium can look for relief. All who have made heroic efforts to this end, and yet have failed in their attempt, have done so through the absence of adequate confidence in the efficacy of time to bring them relief. The one lesson, however, which the reforming opium-eater must learn is, never to relinquish any gain, however slight, which he may make upon his bad habit. Patience will bring him relief at last, and though he may and will find his progress continually thwarted and himself often tempted to give over the contest in despair, he may be sure that year by year he is steadily advancing to the perfect recovery of all that he has lost.
The opium-eater will not regard as amiss some few suggestions as to the mode in which his habit may most easily be abandoned. The best advice that can be given—the only advice that will ever be given by an opium-eater—is, never to begin the habit. The objection at once occurs, both to the medical man and to the patient suffering from extreme nervous disorder, What remedy then shall be given in those numerous cases in which the protracted use of opium, laudanum, or morphine is found necessary? The obvious answer is, that no medical man ever intends to give this drug in such quantities or for so long a time as to establish in the patient a confirmed habit. The frequent, if not the usual history of confirmed opium-eaters is this: A physician prescribes opium as an anodyne, and the patient finds from its use the relief which was anticipated. Very frequently he finds not merely that his pain has been relieved, but that with this relief has been associated a feeling of positive, perhaps of extreme enjoyment. A recurrence of the same pain infallibly suggests a recurrence to the same remedy. The advice of the medical man is not invoked, because the patient knows that morphine or laudanum was the simple remedy that proved so efficacious before, and this he can procure as well without as with the direction of his physician. He becomes his own doctor, prescribes the same remedy the medical man has prescribed, and charges nothing for his advice. The resort to this pleasant medication after no long time becomes habitual, and the patient finds that the remedy, whose use he had supposed was sanctioned by his physician, has become his tyrant. If patients exhibited the same reluctance to the administration of opium that they do to drugs that are nauseous, if the collateral effects of the former were no more pleasurable than lobelia or castor oil, nothing more could be said against self-medication in one case than the other. Opium-eaters are made such, not by the physician's prescription of opium to patients in whose cases its use is indispensable, but by their not giving together with such prescriptions emphatic and earnest caution that the remedy is not to be taken except when specially ordered, in consequence of the hazard that a habit may be formed which it will be difficult to break. Patients to whom it is regularly administered are not at first generally aware how easily this habit is acquired, nor with what difficulty it is relinquished, especially by persons of nervous temperament and enfeebled health. The number of cases, I suspect, is small in which the use of opium has become a necessity, where the direction of a physician may not be pleaded as justifying its original employment.
The object I have in view is not, however, so much to make suggestions to medical men as it is to awaken in the victims of opium the feeling that they can master the tyrant by such acts of resolution, patience, and self-control as most men are fully capable of exhibiting. Certain conditions, however, seem to be the almost indispensable preliminaries to success in relinquishing opium by those who have been long habituated to its use. The first and most important of these is a firm conviction on the part of the patient that the task can be accomplished. Without this he can do nothing. The narratives given in this volume show its entire practicability. In addition to this, it should be remembered that these experiments were most of them made in the absence of any sufficient guidance, from the experience of others, as to the method and alleviations with which the task can be accomplished. A second condition necessary to success, is sufficient physical health, with sufficient firmness of character to undergo, as a matter of course, the inevitable suffering of the body, and to resist the equally inevitable temptation to the mind to give up the strife under some paroxysm of impatience, or in some moment of dark despondency. With a very moderate share of vigor of constitution, and with a will, capable under other circumstances of strenuous and sustained exertion, there is no occasion to anticipate a failure here. Even in cases of impaired health, and with a diminished capacity for resolute endeavor, success is, I believe, attainable, provided sufficient time be taken for the trial.
A further condition lies in the attempt being made under the most favorable circumstances in respect to absolute leisure from business of every kind. That nothing can be accomplished by persons whose time is not at their own command, by a graduated effort protracted through many months, I do not say, for I do not believe it; but any speedy relinquishment of opium—that is, within a month or two—seems to me to be wholly impossible, except to those who are so situated that they can give up their whole time and attention to the effort.
This effort should be made with the advice and under the eye of an intelligent physician. So far as I have had opportunity to know, the profession generally is not well informed on the subject. In my own case I certainly found no one who seemed familiar with the phenomena pertaining to the relinquishment of opium, or whose suggestions indicated even in cases where the physician has had no experience whatever in this class of disorders, he can, if a well-educated man, bring his medical knowledge and medical reasoning to bear upon the various states, both of body and mind, which the varying sufferings of the patient may make known to him. Were there, indeed, no professional helps to be secured by such consultation, it is still of infinite service to the patient to know some one to whom he can frequently impart the history of his struggle and the progress he is making. Such confidence may do much to encourage the patient, and no one is so proper a person in whom to repose this confidence as an intelligent physician.
The amount of time which should be devoted to the experiment must depend very greatly upon these considerations—the constitution of the patient, the length of time which has elapsed since the habit was formed, and the quantity habitually taken. When the habit is of recent date, and the daily dose has not been large—say not more than ten or twelve grains—if the patient has average health, his emancipation from the evil may be attained in a comparatively short period, though not without many sharp pangs and many wakeful nights which will call for the exercise of all his resolution.
The question will naturally suggest itself to others, as it has often done to myself, whether a less sudden relinquishment of opium would not be preferable as being attended with less present and less subsequent suffering. Numerous cases have come under my notice where a very gradual reduction was attempted, but which resulted in failure. Only two exceptions are known to me: in one of these the patient, himself a physician, effected his release by a graduated reduction extending through five months. The other is the case of Dr. S., a physician of eminence in Connecticut many years ago. This gentleman had made so free use of opium to counteract a tendency to consumption that the habit became established. After several years, and at the suggestion of his wife, he made a resolution to abandon it, engaging to take no opium except as it passed through her hands, but with the understanding that the process of relinquishment was to be slow and gradual. His allowance at this time was understood to be from twenty to thirty grains of crude opium daily. At the end of two years the habit was abandoned, with no very serious suffering during the time, and so far as his daughter was informed, with no subsequent inconvenience to himself. He lived many years after his disuse of opium, in the active discharge of the duties of his profession, and died at last in the ninetieth year of his age. The hazard of this course, however, consists in the possibility, not to say with some temperaments the probability, that somewhere in the course of so very gradual a descent the same influences which led originally to the use of opium may recur, with no counteracting influence derived from the excitement of the mind produced by the earnestness of the struggle. With some constitutions I have no doubt that a process even so slow as that of Dr. S.'s might be successful, but I suspect, with most men, that some mood of excited feeling, and some conscious sense of conflict, will be found necessary, in order to bring them up resolutely to the work of self-emancipation. On the other hand, I am satisfied that my own descent was too rapid. Had the experiment of between five and six weeks been protracted to twice that time, much of the immediate suffering, and probably more of that which soon followed, might have been prevented. As in the constitution of every person there is a limit beyond which further indulgence in any pernicious habit results in chronic derangement, so also there seems to be a limit in the discontinuance of accustomed indulgence, going beyond which is sure to result in some increased physical disorder. In the cure of delirium tremens, the first step of the physician is to stimulate. With more moderate drinkers abrupt cessation from the use of stimulants is the only sure remedy. In the first instance the nervous system is too violently agitated to dispense entirely with the accustomed habit; in the second, the nerves are presumed to be able to bear the temporary strain imposed upon them by the condition of the stomach and other organs. But with opium the case is otherwise. Insanity, I think, would be the general result of an attempt immediately to relinquish the habit by those who have long indulged it. The most the opium-eater can do is to diminish his allowance as rapidly as is safe. For the same reason that no sensible physician would direct the confinement of a patient and the absolute disuse of opium with the certainty that mania would result, so it would be equally ill advised to recommend a diminution so rapid as necessarily to call out the most serious disorder and derangement of all the bodily functions, especially if these could be made more endurable by being spread over a longer period. In one respect the opium-eater has greatly the advantage over those addicted to other bad habits. Those who have used distilled or fermented drinks, tobacco, and sometimes coffee and tea in excess, experience for a time a strong and definite craving for the wonted indulgence. This is never the case with the opium-eater; he has no specific desire whatever for the drug. The only difficulty he has to encounter is the agony of pain—for no other word adequately expresses the suffering he endures—conjoined with a general desire for relief. Yet in the very acme of his punishment he will be sensible of no craving for opium at all like the craving of the drunkard for spirits. As De Quincey justly represents it, the feeling is more that of a person under actual torture, aching for relief, though with no care from what source that relief comes. So far from there being any particular desire for opium, there ensues very speedily, I suspect, after the attempt to abandon it is begun, and long before the necessity for its use has ceased, and even while the suffering from its partial disuse is most unendurable, a feeling in reference to the drug itself not far removed from disgust. The only occasion that I have had of late years to make use of opium or any of its preparations, was within a twelvemonth after it had been laid aside. A morbid feeling had long troubled me with the suggestion that should a necessity ever arise for the medical use of opium, I might be precipitated back into the habit. I was not sorry, therefore, when the necessity for its use occurred, that I might test the correctness of my apprehension. To my surprise, not only was no desire for a second trial of its virtues awakened, but the very effort to swallow the pill was accompanied with a feeling akin to loathing.
The final decision of the question, How long a time should be allowed for the final relinquishment of the drug? must, I imagine, be left to a wider experience than has yet been recorded. The general strength of the constitution, the force of the will, the degree of nervous sensibility, together with the external circumstances of one's life, have all much to do with its proper explication.
The general directions I should be disposed to suggest for the observance of the confirmed opium-eater would be something as follows:
1. To diminish the daily allowance as rapidly as possible to one-half. A fortnight's time should effect this without serious suffering, or any thing more than the slight irritation and some other inconveniences that will be found quite endurable to one who is in earnest in his purpose.
2. For the first week, if the previous habit has been to take the daily dose in a single portion, or even in two portions, morning and night, it will be found advisable to divide the diminished quantity into four parts. Thus, if eighty grains has been the customary quantity taken, four pills of fifteen grains each, taken at regular intervals, say one at eight and one at twelve o'clock in the morning, and one at four and one at eight in the evening, will be found nearly equal in their effect to the eighty grains taken at once in the morning. A further diminution of two grains a day, or of half a grain in each of these four daily portions, will within the week reduce the quantity taken to fifty grains, and this without much difficulty, and with positive gain in respect to elasticity of spirits, arising, in part, from the newly-awakened hope of ultimate success. A second week should suffice for a reduction to forty grains. It will probably be better to divide the slightly diminished daily allowance into five portions, to be taken at intervals of two hours from rising in the morning till the daily quantity is consumed. With such a graduated scale of descent, it will be found at the end of two weeks that one-half of the original quantity of opium has been abandoned, and that, with so little pain of body, and so much gain to the general health and spirits, that the completion of the task will seem to the patient ridiculously easy. He will soon learn, however, that he has not found out all the truth.
In the third week a further gain of ten grains can the more easily be made by still further dividing the daily portion into an increased number of parts, say ten. The feeling of restlessness and irritability by this time will have become somewhat annoying, and the actual struggle will be seen to have commenced. It will doubtless require at this point some persistence of character to bear up against the increased impatience, both of body and spirit, which marks this stage of the descent. The feelings will endeavor to palm off upon the judgment a variety of reasons why, for a time, a larger quantity should be taken; but this is merely the effect of the diminished amount of the stimulant. Sleep will probably be found to be of short continuance as well as a good deal broken. Reading has ceased to interest, and a fidgety, fault-finding temper not unlikely has begun to exhibit itself. At this point, I am satisfied, most opium-eaters who have endeavored in vain to renounce the habit, have broken down. Their resolution has failed them not because they were unable to stand much greater punishment than had yet been inflicted, but because they yielded to the impression that some other time would prove more opportune for the final experiment. Under this delusion they have foolishly thrown away the benefit of their past self-control, with the certainty that should the trial be again made, they would once more be assailed by a similar temptation. But if this stage of the process has been safely passed, the next—that of reducing the daily quantity from thirty grains to twenty-five, still dividing the day's allowance into ten portions—would probably have added little aggravation to the uncomfortable feeling which already existed, but not without some conscious addition, on the other hand, to their enjoyment from the partially successful result of the experiment. Thus in four weeks a very substantial gain, by the reduction of the needed quantity from eighty grains to twenty-five, would have been attained.
If the patient should find it necessary to stop at this point for a week, a fortnight, or even longer, no great harm would necessarily result; it would only postpone by so much his ultimate triumph. He should never forget, however, that the one indispensable condition of success is this: Never under any circumstances to give up what has been once gained. If in any manner the patient has been able to get through the day with the use of only twenty-five grains, it is certain that he can get through the next, and the next, and the subsequent day with the same amount, with the further certainty that the habit of being content with this minimum quantity will soon begin to be established, and that speedily a further advance may be made in the direction of an entire disuse. Whenever the patient finds his condition to be somewhat more endurable, whether the time be longer or shorter, he should make a still further reduction, say to one-quarter of his original dose. If this abatement of quantity be spread over the entire week the aggravation of his discomfort will not be great, while the elation of his spirits over what he has already accomplished will go far in enabling him to bear the degree of pain which necessarily pertains to the stage of the experiment which he has now reached. The caution, however, must be borne continually in mind that under no circumstances and on no pretext must the patient entertain the idea that any part of that which he has gained can he surrendered. Better for him to be years in the accomplishment of his deliverance than to recede a step from any advantage he may have secured. If he persists, he will in a few days, or at the longest in a few weeks, find his condition as to bodily pain endurable if nothing more. There may not, probably will not be any very appreciable gain from day to day. The excited sufferer, judging from his feelings alone, may think that he has made no progress whatever; but if after the lapse of a week he will contrast his command of temper, or his ability to fix his attention upon a subject, as evinced at the beginning and end of this period, he can hardly fail to see that there has been a real if not a very marked advance in his status. Such a person has no right to expect, after years of uninterrupted indulgence, that the most obstinate of all habits can be relinquished with ease, or that he can escape the penalty which is wisely and kindly attached to all departures from the natural or supernatural laws which govern the world. It should be enough for him to know that there is no habit of mind or of body which may not be overcome, and that the process of overcoming, in its infinite variety of forms, is that out of which almost all that is good in character or conduct grows, and that the amount of this good is usually measured by the struggle which has been found necessary to ensure success.
Considerations of this nature, however, are of too general a character to be of much service to one enduring the misery of the reforming opium-eater. He has now arrived at a point where he is obliged to ask himself when and how the contest is to end. He has succeeded in abandoning three-quarters of the opium to which he has so long been accustomed. A few weeks have enabled him to accomplish this much. He endures, indeed, great discomfort by day and by night; but hope has been re-awakened; his mind has recovered greater activity than it has known for years; and, on the whole, he feels that he has been greatly the gainer from the contest.
Let me repeat, that the main thing for the patient at this point of his trial is not to forego the advantage he has already attained—"not to go back." If he can only hold his own he has so far triumphed, and it is only a question of time when the triumph shall be made complete. When this shall be effected he must decide. The rapidity of his further progress must be determined by what he himself is conscious he has the strength, physical and moral, to endure. With some natures any very sudden descent is impossible; with others, whatever is done must be done continuously and rapidly or is not done at all. The one temperament can not stand up against the assaults of a fierce attack, the other loses courage except when the fight is at the hottest. For the former ample time must be given or he surrenders; the latter will succumb if any interval is allowed for repose. It is, therefore, difficult to suggest from this point downward any rule which shall apply equally to temperaments essentially unlike. I think, however, that the suggestion to divide the daily allowance, whether the descent be a slow or a rapid one, into numerous small parts to be taken at equal intervals of time, will be found to facilitate the success of the attempt in the case of both. The chief value of such subdivision probably consists in its throwing the aggregate influence of the day's opium nearer the hour of bed-time, when it is most needed, than to an earlier hour, when its soporific power is less felt. In addition to this, the importance to the excited and irritated patient of being able to look forward during the long-protracted hours to frequent, even if slight, alleviations of his pain, should not be left out of the account. In general it may be said that whenever the patient feels that he can safely, that is, without danger of failing in his resolution, adventure upon a further diminution of the quantity, an additional amount, smaller or greater according to circumstances, should be deducted till the point is reached where the suffering becomes unendurable; then after a delay of few or many days, as may be needed to make him somewhat habituated to the diminished allowance, a still further reduction should be made, and so on for such time as the peculiarities of different constitutions and circumstances may make necessary, till the quantity daily required has become so small, say a grain or two, that by still more minute subdivisions, and by dropping one of them daily, the final victory is achieved.
I have not ventured to say in how short a time confirmed habits of opium-eating may be abandoned. In my own case it was thirty-nine days, but with my present experience I should greatly prefer to extend the time to at least sixty days; and this chiefly with reference to the violent effects upon the constitution produced by the suddenness of the change of habit. Some constitutions may possibly require less time and some probably, more. While I regard the abandonment of the first three-quarters of the accustomed allowance as being a much easier task than the last quarter, and one which can be accomplished with comparative impunity in a brief period, I would allow at least twice the time for the experiment of dispensing with the last quarter; unless, indeed, I should be apprehensive that my resolution might break down through the absence of the excitement which is unquestionably afforded by the feeling that you are engaged in a deadly but doubtful conflict. So far, also, as can be inferred from cases subsequently narrated in this volume, the probability of success would seem to be enhanced by devoting a longer time to the trial. It can not, however, be too often repeated, that however slow or however rapid the pace may be, the rule to be rigidly observed is this: Never to increase the minimum dose that has once been attained. This is the only rule of safety, and by adhering to it, persons in infirm health, or with weakened powers of resolution, will ultimately succeed in their efforts.
I subjoin my own record of the quantity of opium daily consumed, for the possible encouragement of such opium-eaters as may be disposed to make trial of their own resources in the endurance of bodily and mental distress.
Saturday, Nov. 25….80 grains, = 2000 drops of laudanum.
Sunday, " 26….60 " 1500 " "
Monday, " 27….50 " 1250 " "
Tuesday, " 28….40 " 1000 " "
Wednesday, " 29….30 " 750 " "
Thursday, " 30….25 " 625 " "
Friday, Dec. 1….20 " 500 " "
—- ——-
Average of 1st week….44 " 1089 " "
Saturday, Dec. 2…..19 grains, = 475 drops of laudanum.
Sunday, " 3…..18 " 450 " "
Monday, " 4…..17 " 425 " "
Tuesday, " 5…..16 " 400 " "
Wednesday, " 6…..15 " 375 " "
Thursday, " 7…..15 " 375 " "
Friday, " 8…..15 " 375 " "
—— ——
Average of 2d week…..16.43" 411 " "
Saturday, Dec. 9…..14 grains, = 350 drops of laudanum.
Sunday, " 10…..13 " 325 " "
Monday, " 11…..13 " 325 " "
Tuesday, " 12…..12 " 300 " "
Wednesday, " 13…..12 " 300 " "
Thursday, " 14…..11 " 275 " "
Friday, " 15…..10 " 250 " "
—— ——
Average of 3d week…..12.14" 304 " "
Saturday, Dec.16….. 9 grains, = 225 drops of laudanum.
Sunday, " 17….. 8 " 200 " "
Monday, " 18….. 8 " 200 " "
Tuesday, " 19….. 7 " 175 " "
Wednesday, " 20….. 6 " 150 " "
Thursday, " 21….. 5 " 125 " "
Friday, " 22….. 4 " 100 " "
—— ——
Average of 4th week…..6.71" 168 " "
Saturday, Dec.23….. 3 grains, = 75 drops of laudanum.
Sunday, " 24….. 3 " 75 " "
Monday, " 25….. 2 " 50 " "
Tuesday, " 26….. 2 " 50 " "
Wednesday, " 27….. 2 " 50 " "
Thursday, " 28….. 2 " 50 " "
Friday, " 29….. 1 " 25 " "
—— ——
Average of 5th week…..2.14" 54 " "
Saturday, Dec.30….. 1 grain, = 25 drops of laudanum.
Sunday, " 31….. 1 " 25 " "
Monday, Jan. 1….. 1 " 25 " "
Tuesday, " 2…..1/2 " 12 " "
Wednesday, " 3…..1/4 " 6 " "
—— ——
Average of 6th week….0.75 " 18 " "
The fourth and fifth weeks I found to be immeasurably the most difficult to manage. By the sixth week the system had become somewhat accustomed to the denial of the long-used stimulant. At any rate, though no abatement of the previous wretchedness was apparent, it certainly seemed less difficult to endure it. It is at this stage of the process that I regard the advice and encouragement of a physician as most important. He may not indeed be able to do much in direct alleviation of the pain incident to the abandonment of opium, for I suspect that little reliance can be placed upon the medicines ordinarily recommended. The system has become accustomed to the stimulant to an exorbitant degree; the suffering is consequent upon the effort to accustom the system to get on without it. Other kinds of stimulants, like spirits or wine, will afford a slight relief for a few days, especially if taken in sufficiently large quantities to induce sleep. It is the sedative qualities of the opium that are chiefly missed, for as to excitement the patient has quite as much of it as he can bear. For this reason malt liquors are preferable to distilled spirits—they stupefy more than they excite. But to malt liquors this serious objection exists, they tend powerfully to aggravate all disorders of the liver. This tendency the reforming opium-eater can not afford to overlook, for no one effect of the experiment is more distressing than the marvellous and unhealthy activity given to this organ by the process through which he is passing. The testimony of all opium-eaters on this point is uniform. For months and even years this organ in those who have relinquished the drug remains disordered. When in its worst state, the use of something bitter, the more bitter the better, is exceedingly grateful. The difficulty lies in finding any thing that has a properly bitter taste. Aloes, nux vomica, colocynth, quassia, have a flavor that is much more sweet than bitter. These serious annoyances from the condition of the liver, as well as those arising from the state of the stomach and some of the other organs, may be somewhat mitigated by the skill of an intelligent medical man, who, even if he happens to know little about the habit of opium-eating, should know much as to the proper regimen to be observed in cases where these organs are disordered.
In respect to food it seems impossible to lay down any general rule. De Quincey advises beefsteak, not too much cooked, and stale bread as the chief diet, and doubtless this was the best diet for him. Yet it is not the less true that "what is one man's meat is another man's poison," and food that is absolutely harmless to one may disorder the entire digestion of another. Roast pork, mince pies, and cheese do not, I believe, rank high with the Faculty for ease of digestion, yet I have found them comparatively innoxious, while poultry, milk, oysters, fish, some kinds of vegetables, and even dry toast have caused me serious inconvenience. The appetite of the recovering opium-eater will probably be voracious and not at all discriminating during the earlier stages of his experiment, and will continue unimpaired even when the stomach begins to be fastidious as to what it will receive. Probably no safer rule can be given than to limit the quantity eaten as far as practicable, and to use only such food as in each particular case is found to be most easy of digestion.
Too much prominence can not be given to bodily exercise as intimately connected with the recovery of the patient. Without this it seems to me doubtful whether a person could withstand the extreme irritation of his nervous system. In his worst state he can not sit still; he must be moving. The complication of springs in the famous Kilmansegge leg, is nothing compared with the necesity for motion which is developed in the limbs of the recovering opium-eater. Whatever his health, whatever his spirits, whatever the weather, walk he must. Ten miles before breakfast will be found a moderate allowance for many months after the habit has been subdued. A patient who could afford to give up three months of his time after the opium had been entirely discarded, to the perfect recovery of his health, could probably turn it to no better account than by stretching out on a pedestrian excursion of a thousand miles and back. This would be at the rate of nearly twenty-six miles a day, allowing Sunday as a day of rest. This advice is seriously given for the consideration of those who can command the time for such a thorough process of restoration. Nor should any weight be given to the objection that the body is in too enfeebled a state to make it safe to venture upon such an experiment. Account for it as physiologists may, it is certain that the debilitating effects of leaving off opium much more rapidly pass away from the lower extremities than from the rest of the body. At no time subsequent to my mastery of opium have I found any difficulty in accomplishing the longest walks; on the contrary they have been taken with entire ease and pleasure. Yet to this day, any considerable exercise of the other muscles is attended with extreme debility. In the absence of facilities for walking, gymnastic exercise is not wholly without benefit, and if this exercise is followed by a cold bath, some portion of the insupportable languor will be removed. Walking, however, is the great panacea, nor can it well be taken in excess. So important is this element in the restorative process that it may well be doubted whether without its aid a confirmed opium-eater could be restored to health.
It is useless for any person to think that he can break off even the least inveterate of his habits without effort, or the more obstinate ones without a struggle. Wine, spirits, tobacco, after years of habitual use, require a degree of resolution which is sometimes found to be beyond the resources of the will. Much more does opium, whose hold upon the system is vastly more tenacious than all these combined, call for a resolute determination prepared to meet all the possible consequences that pertain to a complete and perfect mastery of the habit. It should be remembered, however, that the experience here recorded is that resulting from years of large and uninterrupted use of opium. The entire system had necessarily conformed itself to the artificial habit. For years the proper action of the nervous, muscular, digestive, and secretory system had been impeded and forced in an unnatural direction. In time all the vital functions had conformed as far as possible to the necessity imposed upon them. Scarce a function of the body that had not been daily drilled into a highly artificial adaptation to the conditions imposed upon the system by the use of opium. Nature, indeed, for a time rebels and resists the attempt to impose unnatural habitudes upon her action; but there is a limit to her resistance, and she is then found to possess a marvellous power of reconciling the processes of life with the disturbance and disorder of almost the entire human organization. This power of adaptation, while it unquestionably lures on to the continued indulgence of all kinds of bad habits, is, on the other hand, the only hope and assurance the sufferer from such causes can have of ultimate recovery from his danger. If it requires years to establish bad habits in the animal economy, why should we expect that they can be wholly eradicated except by a reversal, in these respects, of the entire current of the life, or without allowing a commensurate time for that perfect restoration of the disordered functions which is expected?
If this view of the case is not encouraging to the veteran consumer of opium, it certainly is not without its suggestive utility to that larger class whose use of opium has been comparatively limited both in time and quantity. Fortunately, much the greater number of opium-eaters take the drug in small quantities or have made use of it for only a limited period. In their case the process of recovery is relatively easy; the functions of their physical organization still act for the most part in a normal way; they have to retrace comparatively few steps and for comparatively a short time. Even to the inveterate consumer of the drug it has been made manifest that he may emancipate himself from his bondage if he will manfully accept the conditions upon which alone he can accomplish it. In the worst conceivable cases it is at least a choice between evils; if he abandons opium, he may count upon much suffering of body, many sleepless nights, a disordered nervous system, and at times great prostration of strength. If he continues the habit, there remains, as long as life lasts, the irresolute will, the bodily languor, the ever-present sense of hopeless, helpless ruin. The opium-eater must take his choice between the two. On the one hand is hope, continually brightening in the future—on the other is the inconceivable wretchedness of one from whom hope has forever fled.
DE QUINCEY'S "CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER."
Under this title an article appeared in the "London Magazine" for December, 1821, which attracted very general attention from its literary merit and the novelty of its revelations. So considerable was the interest excited in these "Confessions" that the article was speedily republished in book form both in London and this country. The reading public outside of the medical profession were thus for the first time made generally acquainted with the tremendous potency of a drug whose fascinations have since become almost as well known to the inhabitants of England and America as to the people of India or China. The general properties of the drug had of course been familiar to intelligent men from the days of Vasco de Gama, but how easily the habit of using it could be acquired, and with what difficulty when acquired it could be left off, were subjects respecting which great obscurity rested on the minds even of medical men. Such parts only of these "Confessions" as have relation to De Quincey's habits as an opium-eater, have been selected for republication; such extracts from his other writings are added as embody his entire experience of opium so far as he has given it to the world.
* * * * *
I here present you, courteous reader, with the record of a remarkable period of my life. According to my application of it, I trust that it will prove not merely an interesting record, but in a considerable degree useful and instructive. In that hope it is that I have drawn it up, and that must be my apology for breaking through that delicate and honorable reserve which for the most part restrains us from the public exposure of our own errors and infirmities.
Guilt and misery shrink by a natural instinct from public notice: they court privacy and solitude; and, even in the choice of a grave, will sometimes sequester themselves from the general population of the church-yard, as if declining to claim fellowship with the great family of man, and wishing—in the affecting language of Mr. Wordsworth—
'Humbly to express
A penitential loneliness.'
It is well, upon the whole, and for the interest of us all that it should be so; nor would I willingly, in my own person, manifest a disregard of such salutary feelings, nor in act or word do any thing to weaken them. But on the one hand, as my self-accusation does not amount to a confession of guilt, so on the other, it is possible that, if it did, the benefit resulting to others from the record of an experience purchased at so heavy a price might compensate, by a vast over-balance, for any violence done to the feelings I have noticed, and justify a breach of the general rule. Infirmity and misery do not, of necessity, imply guilt. They approach or recede from the shades of that dark alliance in proportion to the probable motives and prospects of the offender, and the palliations, known or secret, of the offense; in proportion as the temptations to it were potent from the first, and the resistance to it, in act or in effort, was earnest to the last. For my own part, without breach of truth or modesty, I may affirm that my life has been on the whole the life of a philosopher; from my birth I was made an intellectual creature; and intellectual in the highest sense my pursuits and pleasures have been, even from my school-boy days. If opium-eating be a sensual pleasure, and if I am bound to confess that I have indulged in it to an excess not yet recorded [Footnote: "Not yet recorded," I say; for there is one celebrated man of the present day [Coleridge] who, if all be true which is reported of him, has greatly exceeded me in quantity.] of any other man, it is no less true that I have struggled against this fascinating enthrallment with a religious zeal, and have at length accomplished what I never yet heard attributed to any other man—have untwisted, almost to its final links, the accursed chain which fettered me. Such a self-conquest may reasonably be set off in counterbalance to any kind or degree of self-indulgence. Not to insist that, in my case, the self-conquest was unquestionable, the self-indulgence open to doubts of casuistry, according as that name shall be extended to acts aiming at the bare relief of pain, or shall be restricted to such as aim at the excitement of positive pleasure.
Guilt, therefore, I do not acknowledge; and, if I did, it is possible that I might still resolve on the present act of confession, in consideration of the service which I may thereby render to the whole class of opium-eaters. But who are they? Reader, I am sorry to say, a very numerous class indeed. Of this I became convinced some years ago, by computing at that time the number of those in one small class of English society (the class of men distinguished for talent, or of eminent station) who were known to me, directly or indirectly, as opium-eaters; such, for instance, as the eloquent and benevolent ——-, the late Dean of ——-; Lord ——-; Mr. ——-, the philosopher; a late under-secretary of state (who described to me the sensation which first drove him to the use of opium in the very same words of the Dean of ——-, viz., "that he felt as though rats were gnawing and abrading the coats of his stomach"); Mr. ——-; and many others, hardly less known, whom it would be tedious to mention. Now if one class, comparatively so limited, could furnish so many scores of cases (and that within the knowledge of one single inquirer), it was a natural inference that the entire population of England would furnish a proportionable number. The soundness of this inference, however, I doubted, until some facts became known to me which satisfied me that it was not incorrect. I will mention two: 1. Three respectable London druggists, in widely remote quarters of London, from whom I happened lately to be purchasing small quantities of opium, assured me that the number of amateur opium-eaters (as I may term them) was at this time immense; and that the difficulty of distinguishing these persons, to whom habit had rendered opium necessary, from such as were purchasing it with a view to suicide, occasioned them daily trouble and disputes. This evidence respected London only. But, 2, (which will possibly surprise the reader more,) some years ago, on passing through Manchester, I was informed by several cotton manufacturers that their work-people were rapidly getting into the practice of opium-eating; so much so that on a Saturday afternoon the counters of the druggists were strewed with pills of one, two, or three grains, in preparation for the known demand of the evening. The immediate occasion of this practice was the lowness of wages, which at that time would not allow them to indulge in ale or spirits, and wages rising, it may be thought that this practice would cease; but as I do not readily believe that any man, having once tasted the divine luxuries of opium, will afterward descend to the gross and mortal enjoyments of alcohol, I take it for granted
"That those eat now who never ate before;
And those who always ate, now eat the more."
I have often been asked how I first came to be a regular opium-eater, and have suffered very unjustly in the opinion of my acquaintance, from being reputed to have brought upon myself all the sufferings which I shall have to record, by a long course of indulgence in this practice purely for the sake of creating an artificial state of pleasurable excitement. This, however, is a misrepresentation of my case. True it is that for nearly ten years I did occasionally take opium for the sake of the exquisite pleasure it gave me; but, so long as I took it with this view, I was effectually protected from all material bad consequences by the necessity of interposing long intervals between the several acts of indulgence, in order to renew the pleasurable sensations. It was not for the purpose of creating pleasure, but of mitigating pain in the severest degree, that I first began to use opium as an article of daily diet. In the twenty-eighth year of my age a most painful affection of the stomach, which I had first experienced about ten years before, attacked me in great strength. This affection had originally been caused by the extremities of hunger suffered in my boyish days. During the season of hope and redundant happiness which succeeded (that is, from eighteen to twenty-four) it had slumbered; for the three following years it had revived at intervals; and now, under unfavorable circumstances, from depression of spirits, it attacked me with a violence that yielded to no remedies but opium.
It is so long since I first took opium, that if it had been a trifling incident in my life I might have forgotten its date; but cardinal events are not to be forgotten; and, from circumstances connected with it, I remember that it must be referred to the autumn of 1804. During that season I was in London, having come thither for the first time since my entrance at college. And my introduction to opium arose in the following way: From an early age I had been accustomed to wash my head in cold water at least once a day. Being suddenly seized with toothache, I attributed it to some relaxation caused by an accidental intermission of that practice; jumped out of bed, plunged my head into a basin of cold water, and with hair thus wetted went to sleep. The next morning, as I need hardly say, I awoke with excruciating rheumatic pains of the head and face, from which I had hardly any respite for about twenty days. On the twenty-first day I think it was, and on a Sunday, that I went out into the streets; rather to run away, if possible, from my torments than with any distinct purpose. By accident I met a college acquaintance, who recommended opium. Opium! dread agent of unimaginable pleasure and pain! I had heard of it as I had heard of manna or of ambrosia, but no further. How unmeaning a sound it was at that time! what solemn chords does it now strike upon my heart! what heart-quaking vibrations of sad and happy remembrances! It was a Sunday afternoon, wet and cheerless; and a duller spectacle this earth of ours has not to show than a rainy Sunday in London. My road homeward lay through Oxford Street, and near the "Pantheon" I saw a druggist's shop. The druggist (unconscious minister of celestial pleasures!), as if in sympathy with the rainy Sunday, looked dull and stupid, just as any mortal druggist might be expected to look on a Sunday, and when I asked for the tincture of opium he gave it to me as any other man might do; and furthermore, out of my shilling returned to me what seemed to be a real copper half-penny, taken out of a real wooden drawer. Nevertheless, in spite of such indications of humanity, he has ever since existed in my mind as a beatific vision of an immortal druggist sent down to earth on a special mission to myself.
Arrived at my lodgings, it may be supposed that I lost not a moment in taking the quantity prescribed. I was necessarily ignorant of the whole art and mystery of opium-taking, and what I took, I took under every disadvantage. But I took it; and in an hour—O heavens! what a revulsion! what an upheaving from its lowest depths of the inner spirit! what an apocalypse of the world within me! That my pains had vanished was now a trifle in my eyes—this negative effect was swallowed up in the immensity of those positive effects which had opened before me in the abyss of divine enjoyment thus suddenly revealed. Here was a panacea, a phaomakon nepenfes, for all human woes; here was the secret of happiness, about which philosophers had disputed for so many ages, at once discovered. Happiness might now be bought for a penny and carried in the waistcoat pocket; portable ecstacies might be had corked up in a pint-bottle; and peace of mind could be sent down in gallons by the mail-coach. But if I talk in this way the reader will think I am laughing, and I can assure him that nobody will laugh long who deals much with opium. Its pleasures even are of a grave and solemn complexion, and in his happiest state the opium-eater can not present himself in the character of L'Allegro; even then he speaks and thinks as becomes Il Penseroso.
And first one word with respect to its bodily effects; for upon all that has been hitherto written on the subject of opium, whether by travellers in Turkey (who may plead their privilege of lying as an old immemorial right) or by professors of medicine, writing ex cathedra, I have but one emphatic criticism to pronounce—Lies! lies! lies! I do by no means deny that some truths have been delivered to the world in regard to opium: thus it has been repeatedly affirmed by the learned that opium is a dusky brown in color, and this, take notice, I grant; secondly, that it is rather dear, which also I grant—for in my time East India opium has been three guineas a pound, and Turkey eight; and thirdly, that if you eat a good deal of it, most probably you must do what is particularly disagreeable to any man of regular habits, viz., die. These weighty propositions are, all and singular, true; I can not gainsay them; and truth ever was and will be commendable. But in these three theorems I believe we have exhausted the stock of knowledge as yet accumulated by man on the subject of opium. And therefore, worthy doctors, as there seems to be room for further discoveries, stand aside and allow me to come forward and lecture on this matter.
First, then, it is not so much affirmed as taken for granted by all who ever mention opium, formally or incidentally, that it does or can produce intoxication. Now, reader, assure yourself, meo periculo, that no quantity of opium ever did or could intoxicate. As to the tincture of opium, commonly called laudanum, that might certainly intoxicate if a man could bear to take enough of it; but why? because it contains so much proof spirit, and not because it contains so much opium. But crude opium, I affirm peremptorily, is incapable of producing any state of body at all resembling that which is produced by alcohol; and not in degree only incapable, but even in kind; it is not in the quantity of its effects merely, but in the quality, that it differs altogether. The pleasure given by wine is always mounting and tending to a crisis, after which it declines; that from opium, when once generated, is stationary for eight or ten hours; the first, to borrow a technical distinction from medicine, is a case of acute, the second of chronic, pleasure; the one is a flame, the other a steady and equable glow. But the main distinction lies in this, that whereas wine disorders the mental faculties, opium, on the contrary (if taken in a proper manner), introduces among them the most exquisite order, legislation, and harmony. Wine robs a man of his self-possesion; opium greatly invigorates it. Wine unsettles and clouds the judgment, and gives a preternatural brightness and a vivid exaltation to the contempts and the admirations, to the loves and the hatreds, of the drinker; opium, on the contrary, communicates serenity and equipoise to all the faculties, active or passive; and, with respect to the temper and moral feelings in general, it gives simply that sort of vital warmth which is approved by the judgment, and which would probably always accompany a bodily constitution of primeval or antediluvian health. Thus, for instance, opium, like wine, gives an expansion to the heart and the benevolent affections; but then with this remarkable difference, that in the sudden development of kind-heartedness which accompanies inebriation there is always more or less of a maudlin character which exposes it to the contempt of the by-stander. Men shake hands, swear eternal friendship, and shed tears—no mortal knows why—and the sensual creature is clearly uppermost. But the expansion of the benigner feelings, incident to opium, is no febrile access, but a healthy restoration to that state which the mind would naturally recover upon the removal of any deep-seated irritation of pain that had disturbed and quarrelled with the impulse of a heart originally just and good. Wine constantly leads a man to the brink of absurdity and extravagance, and beyond a certain point it is sure to volatilize and to dispence the intellectual energies; whereas opium always seens to compose what had been agitated, and to concentrate what had been distracted. In short, to sum up all in one word, a man who is, inebriated, or tending to inebriation, is, and feels that he is in a condition which calls up into supremacy the merely human, too often the brutal, part of his nature; but the opium-eater (I speak of him who is not suffering from any disease, or other remote effects of opium) feels that the diviner part of his nature is paramount; that is, the moral affections are in a state of cloudless serenity; and over all is the great light of the majestic intellect.
This is the doctrine of the true Church on the subject of opium: of which Church I acknowledge myself to be the only member—the alpha and omega; but then it is to be recollected that I speak from the ground of a large and profound personal experience, whereas most of the unscientific authors who have at all treated of opium, and even of those who have written expressly on the materia medica, make it evident from the horror they express of it that their experimental knowledge of its action is none at all. I will, however, candidly acknowledge that I have met with one person who bore evidence to its intoxicating power such as staggered my own incredulity; for he was a surgeon, and had himself taken opium largely. I happened to say to him, that his enemies (as I had heard) charged him with talking nonsense on politics, and that his friends apologized for him by suggesting that he was constantly in a state of intoxication from opium. Now the accusation, said I, is not prima facie, and of necessity an absurd one; but the defense is. To my surprise, however, he insisted that both his enemies and his friends were in the right. "I will maintain," said he, "that I do talk nonsense; and secondly, I will maintain that I do not talk nonsense upon principle, or with any view to profit, but solely and simply," said he, "solely and simply—solely and simply," repeating it three times over, "because I am drunk with opium; and that daily." I confess, that the authority of a surgeon, and one who was reputed a good one, may seem a weighty one to my prejudice; but still I must plead my experience, which was greater than his greatest by seven thousand drops a day; and though it was not possible to suppose a medical man unacquainted with the characteristic symptoms of vinous intoxication, yet it struck me that he might proceed on a logical error of using the word intoxication with too great latitude, and extending it generically to all modes of nervous excitement, instead of restricting it as the expression for a specific sort of excitement connected with certain diagnostics. Some people have maintained, in my hearing, that they had been drunk upon green tea; and a medical student in London, for whose knowledge in his profession I have reason to feel great respect, assured me the other day that a patient in recovering from an illness had got drunk on a beefsteak.