Opium is undoubtedly the most important and valuable remedy of the
whole Materia Medica. For other medicines we have one or more
substitutes, but for opium none,--at least in the large majority of
cases in which its peculiar and beneficial influence is required. Its
good effects are not, as is the case with some valuable medicines,
remote and contingent, but they are immediate, direct, and obvious,
and its operation is not attended with pain or discomfort. Furthermore
it is applied, and with the greatest success, to the relief of
maladies of everyday occurrence, some of which are attended with acute
human suffering.
This is the description given of opium in Dr. Quain's _Dictionary of
Medicine_ recently published:--
Opium and morphia naturally stand first and still hold their place as
our most potent and reliable narcotics, all the more valuable because
almost alone in their class they are also endowed with powerful
anodyne action, in virtue of which they may relieve pain without
causing sleep. Valuable as it is in all forms of insomnia, opium is
especially indicated in typhus fever and other acute disorders, when
delirium and prolonged wakefulness seem to endanger life. The
principal drawback to opium is the digestive disturbance following its
use, and the fact that, as toleration is very rapidly established,
gradually increasing doses are needed to check the counteracting
influence of habit.
The Anti-Opium Society and their followers allege that dram-drinking is
not only less baneful than opium-smoking, but they say that the latter
practice so injures the constitution, and has such extraordinary
attractions for those who indulge in it, that it is impossible to get rid
of the habit, and that, in effect, whilst drunkards can be reformed, opium
smokers cannot. This is absolutely untrue. The reverse is much nearer the
mark. The effect upon the system of constant spirit drinking, leaving
actual drunkenness and its consequences aside, is that it produces organic
changes in the system, by acting upon what medical men call the
"microscopic tissues," of which the whole human frame is made up; also
poisoning the blood, which then, instead of being a healthy fluid coursing
freely through the frame and invigorating the entire system, flows
sluggishly, producing organic changes in the blood vessels, inducing
various diseases according to the constitution and tendencies of the
individual. Three of the most usual diseases to which the habitual dram
drinker is subject are liver disease, fatty degeneration of the heart, and
paralysis. There is not a medical student of three months' experience who
could not, if you entered a dissecting-room, point you out a "drunkard's
liver." The moment he sees that object he knows at once that the wretched
being to whom it belonged had, by continued indulgence in alcohol, ruined
his constitution and health, and brought himself to an untimely end. There
is another serious consequence arising from habitual drinking. Not only
does the habit irreparably ruin the general health so that cure is
impossible, but it induces insanity, and I believe I am not beyond the
mark in stating that fifty per cent. at the least of the lunatics in our
various asylums throughout the country have become insane from
over-indulgence in alcohol. Dr. Pereira, in his celebrated _Materia
Medica_, states that out of one hundred and ten cases occurring in male
patients admitted into the Hanwell Lunatic Asylum in 1840, no fewer than
thirty-one were ascribed to intemperance, while thirty-four were referred
to combined causes of which intemperance was stated to be one; and yet Mr.
Turner and his disciples say that spirit drinking is a lesser vice than
opium smoking!
I need not remind you of the consequences to others besides the actual
victims to spirit drinking, for that is unfortunately told too eloquently
and but too vividly brought before us every day in the public newspapers.
You will find that those acts of violence, those unfortunate cases that
make one shudder to read, happening daily in this country--kicking wives,
sometimes to death, beating and otherwise ill-using helpless children,
violently attacking unoffending people in the streets--all are the
results, more or less, of spirit drinking. Even the missionaries admit
that opium smoking does not produce any of these evils. As I have said
before, truth is natural to the human mind, and will reveal itself, even
where it is not directly relevant to the purpose. Mr. Turner does not
venture to dispute this in his book, and I would call your attention to
the passage. He says on page 33:--
Even between drunkenness and opium smoking there are perceptible
distinctions. We must allow that opium smoking is a much more pacific
and polite vice. The opium sot does not quarrel with his mate nor kick
his wife to death; he is quiet and harmless enough while the spirit of
the drug possesses him.
That is all true so far as the fact goes, but if an insinuation is
intended that the Chinaman gets violent after the effect of the drug has
passed away, there is no foundation for it in fact. The Chinaman takes
opium just because he likes it, and knowing it will act at once as a
pleasing sedative and a harmless stimulant. A man who is working hard all
day in a tropical climate, whether at bodily or mental work, finds,
towards the close of the day, his nervous system in an unsettled state,
and looks for a stimulant, and the most harmless and most effectual one he
can find is the opium pipe. When opium and opium smoking are better
understood--and I believe the subject is now but imperfectly known by most
medical men in this country--I feel convinced that the faculty will
largely prescribe opium smoking, not merely as a substitute for dram
drinking, but as a curative agency, that in many cases will be found
invaluable. In this I am borne out by an eminent medical authority, to
whom I shall refer by-and-by. The regular and habitual opium smoker is
seldom or never found to indulge in spirits at all. Stimulants of all
kinds are so freely taken here that people never look upon them as a
poison; but in point of fact they are a terrible poison, and a very active
one, too. Another medical work of very great authority is that by Dr.
Taylor.[7] It has always received the greatest attention in courts of law;
and it is also held in the highest estimation by the medical profession.
At page 315, under the head of "Poisoning by Alcohol," he says:--
The stomach has been found intensely congested or inflamed, the mucous
membrane presenting in one case a bright red, and in another a dark
red-brown colour. When death has taken place rapidly, there may be a
peculiar odour of spirits in the contents; but this will not be
perceived if the quantity taken was small, or many hours have elapsed
before the inspection is made. The brain and its membranes are found
congested, and in some instances there is effusion of blood or serum
beneath the inner membrane. In a case observed by Dr. Geoghegan, in
which a pint of spirits had been taken and proved fatal in eight
hours, black extravasation was found on the mucous membrane of the
stomach; but no trace of alcohol could be detected in the contents.
The action of a strong alcoholic liquid on the mucous membrane of the
stomach so closely resembles the effect produced by arsenic and other
irritants, as easily to give rise to the suspicion of mineral irritant
poisoning. A drawing in the museum collection of Guy's Hospital
furnishes a good illustration of the local action of alcohol. The
whole of the mucous membrane of the stomach is highly corrugated and
is of a deep brownish-red colour. _Of all the liquids affecting the
brain this has the most powerful action on the stomach._ A case of
alcoholic poisoning of a child, æt. seven, referred to me by Mr.
Jackaman, coroner for Ipswich, in July 1863, will serve to show the
correctness of this remark. A girl was found at four o'clock in the
morning lying perfectly insensible on the floor. She had had access to
some brandy, which she had swallowed from a quartern measure, found
near her empty. She had spoken to her mother only ten minutes before,
so that the symptoms must have come on very rapidly. She was seen by
Mr. Adams four hours afterwards. She was then quite insensible, in a
state of profound coma, the skin cold, and covered with a clammy
perspiration. There had been slight vomiting. The child died in twelve
hours, without recovering consciousness, from the time at which she
was first found.
So far Dr. Taylor, a most competent authority on the subject, as showing
what a poison alcohol is. Now alcohol, as I have before mentioned, effects
an organic change in the system, which opium, if smoked, or even if eaten
does not; and when spirits are indulged in to a very considerable extent,
the disease produced is absolutely incurable, because it is impossible for
any medical skill to give a man new tissues, new blood, a new stomach, or
a new liver, where the whole substance and material of all has undergone a
complete and ruinous change. Now, the case as regards opium is totally
different, because, no matter how much one may indulge in opium, whether
in eating or smoking, the effects produced are always curable. This is so
as regards opium eating; in respect to the infinitely less exciting
practice of opium _smoking_, the rule applies with very much greater
force. A man may smoke opium inordinately until, from want of appetite and
impaired digestion, he seems sinking into the grave; he is, however, only
labouring under functional derangement, which is always curable. The use
of opium in any form produces no organic change in the system whatever.
Excessive eating or smoking opium may impair the appetite and digestion,
but that will be all. I have very competent medical authority for saying
this. This fact places opium and alcohol in two entirely different
categories. The one, if eaten in moderation, is, I believe, harmless, if
not beneficial; while, as to the smoking of the drug, it is absolutely
innocuous;--but if alcohol be freely though not inordinately used, it will
prove, sooner or later, destructive to the system, acting upon the frame
as a slow poison, which must eventually end, as experience shows, in ruin
and death. De Quincey tells us in his _Confessions_ that he ate opium with
impunity for eighteen years, and that it was only after eight years
_abuse_ of opium eating that he suffered in any way from the practice.
I will now give you another extract from Dr. Pereira's book. At page 446,
under the heading "Consequences of Habitual Drunkenness," he says:--
The continued use of spirituous liquors gives rise to various morbid
conditions of system, a few only of the most remarkable of which can
be here referred to. One of these is the disease known by the various
names of _delirium tremens_, _d. potatorum_, _oinomapria_, &c., and
which is characterized by delirium, tremor of the extremities,
wakefulness, and great frequency of pulse. The delirium is of a
peculiar kind. It usually consists in the imagined presence of objects
which the patient is anxious to seize or avoid. Its pathology is not
understood. It is sometimes, but not constantly, connected with or
dependent on an inflammatory condition of the brain, or its membranes.
Sometimes it is more allied to nervous fever. Opium has been found an
important agent in relieving it. Insanity is another disease produced
by the immoderate and habitual use of spirituous liquors.
Now I do not think that, much as they have abused opium smoking, any of
the Anti-Opium writers have ever alleged insanity to be an effect or
concomitant of opium smoking. It must therefore be taken as generally
admitted that opium smoking, or even opium eating, does not produce
insanity. We have, then, this undisputed fact, viz. _that insanity and
acts of violence do not result from opium smoking, whilst they are
unquestionably produced by spirit drinking_.
I had recently some conversation on the subject of opium with a medical
friend who has been in large practice in London, for twenty years. I had
previously spoken to him frequently on the same subject, and he has been
kind enough to give me his views in a very interesting and concise manner.
This opinion, I may tell you, is not paid for, or prepared merely to
support a particular purpose, as in the case of trials in the law courts.
It is purely spontaneous. We all know that professional men, whether
doctors, lawyers, surveyors, and others, are all more or less prone to
take the views of the party requiring their services, and they,
accordingly, will give opinions more or less coinciding with those views.
It does not, however, follow that the persons doing so are guilty of any
moral wrong, or that they write or state what they do not believe to be
true; on the contrary, they have a complete faith in the statements they
make. The natural bent of the mind is to lean towards the views urged by
one's patient or client; and thus two physicians or lawyers of the highest
standing and character will be found to hold different opinions. But this
statement with which I have been furnished stands on an entirely different
footing. There can have been no bias in the mind of the writer; it is
simply the result of study and experience. I have the most perfect
confidence in this gentleman's opinions. He is Mr. William Brend, M.R.C.S.
He says:--
There is no organic disease traceable to the use of opium, either
directly or indirectly, and whether used in moderate quantities or
even in great excess. In other words, _there is no special disease
associated with opium_. Functional disorder, more or less, may be, and
no doubt is, induced by the improper or unnecessary use of opium; but
this is only what may be said of any other cause of deranged health,
such as gluttony, bad air, mental anxiety....
However great the functional disorder produced by opium, even when
carried to great excess, may be, the whole effect passes off, and the
bodily system is restored in a little while to a state of complete
health, if the habit be discontinued. Alcohol, when taken in
moderation, unquestionably benefits a certain number of individuals,
but there are others whose systems will not tolerate the smallest
quantities; it acts upon them like a poison. But in the case of all
persons when alcohol is taken in excess disease is sooner or later
produced; that disease consists of organic changes induced in the
blood-vessels of the entire system, more especially the minute
blood-vessels called the capillaries; these become dilated, and
consequently weakened in their coats, and eventually paralyzed, so
that they cannot contract upon the blood. The result of this is
stagnation, leading to further changes still, such as fatty
degeneration of all the organs; for it must be remembered that alcohol
circulates with the blood, and thus finds its way into the remotest
tissues. The special diseases referrable to alcohol, besides this
general fatty degeneration, are the disease of the liver called
"cirrhosis," and very frequently "Bright's disease of the kidneys."
Here, then, we have a great and important difference between opium and
alcohol. The second great difference grows out of the first. It is
this:--I have said that if alcohol be taken in excess for a certain
length of time, depending to some extent upon the susceptibility of
the individual, organic change, that is disease, is inevitable; but
the saddest part of it is that it is real disease, not merely
functional disorder; so that if those who have yielded to that excess
can be persuaded to abandon alcohol entirely the mischief induced must
remain. The progress of further evil may be staved off, but the system
can never again be restored to perfect health. _The demon_ has taken a
grip which can never be entirely unloosed. Herein there is the second
great difference between the use of opium and of alcohol in excess.
If what I have said of opium eating be true, common sense will draw
the inference that opium smoking must be comparatively innocuous, for
used in this way, a very small quantity indeed of the active
constituents find their entrance into the system. Its influence, like
tobacco, is exerted entirely upon the nervous system, and when that
influence has passed off it leaves (as also in the case of tobacco) a
greater or less craving for its repetition; but as organic disease is
not the result, I see no reason why opium smoking in moderation
necessarily degrades the individual more than does the smoking of
tobacco.
Here I will give you another extract from Mr. Storrs Turner's book, which
tells against his case very strongly indeed. How he came to insert it I
can only understand on the principle I have already mentioned, that truth
is inherent to the human mind and will reveal itself occasionally even
though it has to struggle through a mountain of prejudice and of warped
understanding. This is it, from the evidence of Dr. Eatwell, First
Assistant Opium Examiner in the Bengal service; it will be found on page
233:--
Having passed three years in China, I may be allowed to state the
results of my observation, and I can affirm thus far, that the effects
of the abuse of the drug do not come very frequently under
observation, and that when cases do occur, the habit is frequently
found to have been induced by the presence of some painful chronic
disease, to escape from the sufferings of which the patient has fled
to this resource. That this is not always the case, however, I am
perfectly ready to admit, and there are doubtless many who indulge in
the habit to a pernicious extent, led by the same morbid impulses
which induce men to become drunkards in even the most civilised
countries; but these cases do not, at all events, come before the
public eye. It requires no laborious search in civilized England to
discover evidences of the pernicious effects of the abuse of alcoholic
liquors; our open and thronged gin-palaces, and our streets afford
abundant testimony on the subject; but in China this open evidence of
the evil effects of opium is at least wanting. As regards the effects
of the habitual use of the drug on the mass of the people, I must
affirm that no injurious results are visible. The people generally are
a muscular and well-formed race, the labouring portion being capable
of great and prolonged exertion under a fierce sun, in an unhealthy
climate. Their disposition is cheerful and peaceable, and quarrels and
brawls are rarely heard amongst even the lower orders; whilst in
general intelligence they rank deservedly high amongst Orientals. I
will, therefore, conclude with observing, that the proofs are still
wanting to show that the moderate use of opium produces more
pernicious effects upon the constitution than does the moderate use of
spirituous liquors; whilst, at the same time, it is certain that the
consequences of the abuse of the former are less appalling in their
effect upon the victim, and less disastrous to society at large, than
are consequences of the abuse of the latter.
Could any evidence against the allegations of the Anti-Opium Society be
stronger than this? Have I not now a right to say, "Out of the mouth of
thine own witness I convict thee!"
My own observation goes to show that opium smoking is far more fascinating
than opium eating, and that the opium smoker never relapses into the opium
eater. Opium eating, as I think I have already stated, is unknown in
China. I think these statements put the question as regards opium smoking,
opium eating, and spirit drinking in a very different light to what the
advocates of the Anti-Opium Society throw upon the subject. The latter
talk of the importation of Indian opium into China as the origin of the
custom of smoking the drug, or, at the least, that it has made the natives
smoke more than they otherwise would have done. There is no truth in such
representations. Let us take the year 1880, for instance, and adopting the
figures given by Sir Robert Hart, and concurred in by the British
merchants, which I take to be quite correct, that the amount of opium
imported into China from India was in that year one hundred thousand
chests, each chest weighing a pikul, which would amount to about six
thousand tons. Distribute those six thousand tons over the whole of China,
which, as I have before so often said, is as large as Europe, and with a
population amounting to three hundred and sixty millions, and you will
find it gives such a trifling annual amount to each person, that Sir
Robert Hart cannot mark from its use any damage to the finances of the
State, the wealth of its people, or the growth of its population. In the
United Kingdom, where we have less than a tenth of the population of
China, there were two hundred thousand tons of alcohol--whisky, gin,
brandy--and one thousand and ninety millions four hundred and forty-four
thousand seven hundred and sixteen gallons of wine and beer consumed in
that year. If all these spirits, wine, and beer were mixed up so as to
form one vast lake--one huge "devil's punch-bowl"--there would be
sufficient liquor for the whole population of the United Kingdom to swim
in at one time. But if the tears of all the broken-hearted wives, widows,
and orphans that flowed from the use of the accursed mixture were
collected, they would produce such a sea of sorrow, such an ocean of
misery as never before was presented to the world. Yet philanthropists and
Christian people in this country give all their time, energies, and a
great deal of their money to put down this purely sentimental grievance in
China, and shut their eyes to the terrible evils thundering at their own
doors!
The whole purpose of Mr. Storrs Turner's book, and of the Anti-Opium
Society, is to write down opium smoking in China, with the ultimate view
of suppressing the Indo-China opium trade; and no man living is better
aware than Mr. Turner that opium eating is not a practice with the
Chinese; indeed, I doubt if it is known in China at all. Yet, knowing all
this, he puts forward the outrageous theory that opium smoking and opium
eating are equally injurious; it therefore becomes a matter of the first
importance that the great difference between these two practices should be
clearly shown. In the appendix to Mr. Turner's book there is a mass of
evidence, of which a large portion is quite beside the question, for it
applies exclusively to opium eating--a practice, I assert and will clearly
show, is totally different from, and a thousand times more trying to the
constitution than opium smoking. Dr. Ayres says that opium smokers can
smoke in one day as much opium as would, if eaten, poison one hundred men,
and Dr. Ayres is a very great authority on the subject; for not only has
he a large practice among the better classes of Chinese, all of whom are,
more or less, opium smokers, but his daily duties bring him into contact
with the criminal classes, who are most prone to excessive sensual
indulgence of this kind.
This is what Dr. Ayres says upon the subject in his article in the _Friend
of China_:--
As regards opium smoking, no prisoner who confessed to be an opium
smoker has been allowed a single grain in the gaol. Neither has he had
any stimulant as a substitute, and I do not find there has been any
evil consequence in breaking off this habit at once, nor that any
precaution has been necessary, further than a closer attention to the
general health. Several very good specimens of opium smokers have come
under observation; one was the case of a man whose daily consumption
had been two ounces a day for nineteen years, and who was allowed
neither opium nor gin, nor was he given any narcotic or stimulant. For
the first few days he suffered from want of sleep, but soon was in
fair health, and expressed himself much pleased at having got rid of
the habit.... In my experience, the habit does no physical harm in
moderation. In the greatest case of excess just mentioned at the gaol,
a better-nourished or developed man for his size it would be difficult
to see.
So far as regards opium _eating_, the best medical authorities are divided
as to whether opium eating or drinking in moderation is injurious to the
system at all. In any case, opium eating is not the question before us,
nor the subject of these lectures, which is opium smoking in China. Mr.
Storrs Turner gives, in his appendix, at page 240, extracts from some
statements of Lieut.-Col. James Todd, who says:--
This pernicious plant (the poppy) has robbed the Rajpoot of half his
virtues, and while it obscures these it heightens his vices, giving to
his natural bravery a character of insane ferocity, and to the
countenance which would otherwise beam with intelligence an air of
imbecility.
That entirely relates to the _eating_ of the drug by the Rajpoots of
India, and has no connection or analogy to opium smoking by the Chinese.
There is another quotation on the same page from Dr. Oppenheim, given in
Pereira's _Materia Medica_ as follows:--
The habitual _opium eater_ is instantly recognised by his appearance:
a total attenuation of body, a withered, yellow countenance, a lame
gait, &c.
And so on. This, as you see, applies to opium eating only. There are many
other instances of the effects of such use of opium given in the appendix,
which, after these two quotations, it is useless to further repeat.
Indeed, so far as relevancy to his subject goes, Mr. Storrs Turner might
just as well have introduced into his book medical or other testimony as
to the effects of gluttony or spirit drinking. It suits his purpose,
however, to mix up the two practices, so as to confuse and mislead his
readers. Dr. Oppenheim's statement, by the way, is completely refuted by
Dr. Sir George Birdwood, a distinguished physician, whose long residence
in Bombay,--where there is a Chinese colony, most, if not all, of whom are
habitual smokers of the drug,--and whose thorough acquaintance with the
effects of opium eating and opium smoking, entitle his testimony to the
very highest consideration. Again, at p. 8 of Mr. Turner's volume,
reference is made to De Quincey's book on opium eating, intituled, "The
Confessions of an English Opium Eater." Could anything be more
disingenuous than this? De Quincey was an opium eater, not an opium
smoker. Here is the passage from Mr. Turner's book to which I have
referred:--
Those "Confessions," which are not confessions, but an _apologia pro
vitâ suâ_, an elaborate essay to whitewash his reputation and varnish
over the smirching blot of a self-indulgent habit by a glitter of a
fascinating literary style.
Now did anyone ever hear of such an extraordinary explanation of De
Quincey's motives in publishing that volume? De Quincey, he says, in
effect, was ashamed of the practice of opium eating, and wrote the book as
an excuse for his conduct, so horrible, disgraceful, and debasing,
according to Mr. Storrs Turner, is--not opium eating, observe you,
but--opium smoking. How fallacious are such arguments I think I shall make
apparent to the most simple mind. If a man has the misfortune to have
contracted a disgraceful habit, such, for instance, as over-indulgence in
spirit drinking, the very last thing he would think of doing is to publish
a book upon the subject, and thus acquaint the whole world with his
infirmity. Yet this is what Mr. Turner alleges against De Quincey. But, in
point of fact, he is altogether wrong in supposing that De Quincey was
ashamed of opium eating; if he had been, he unquestionably would not have
written his book, which, by the way, is one of the most fascinating
volumes in our literature. Previous to the publication of it, probably
there were not half a dozen people who knew that he, De Quincey, was an
opium eater, and in the preface to the work, he says, "that his
self-accusation does not amount to a confession of guilt." I know Mr.
Turner to be a gentleman utterly incapable of wilfully acting
disingenuously, much less of stating intentionally what he knew to be
untrue; but he is so blinded by prejudice, his naturally clear intellect
is so warped and distorted, and his faculties and reasoning powers are so
perverted, by this opium question, and his duties towards the Anti-Opium
Society, that he either does not see the difference between the two
things,--opium smoking and opium eating,--or, aware of that difference,
thinks himself justified in classing them together, as they both proceed
from opium, and thus he would persuade himself and his readers that they
are equally baneful. But in this book of his he takes De Quincey, the
opium eater, who confesses to having eaten three hundred and twenty grains
a day, and compares him with an opium-smoking Chinaman who smoked one
hundred and eighty grains a day; the difference between eating three
hundred and twenty grains and smoking one hundred and eighty grains a day
being about as a thousand is to one, in fact, in such case it would be
simply the difference between life and death; and yet Mr. Storrs Turner
would strive to mix up the two practices, so that the incautious reader
might infer that the effects of the one were as injurious as those of the
other. Such is the class of arguments with which the Anti-Opium Society
and its credulous supporters have been satisfied, and upon which the whole
religious world, the country, and the legislature are called upon to come
to the rescue of injured humanity, and abolish this Indo-China opium
trade.
Now, as De Quincey is on the _tapis_, I cannot refrain from exposing a
very disgraceful piece of deception which has been practised upon the
public by some of the agents or supporters of the Anti-Opium Society since
the first edition of my Lectures appeared. This work of De Quincey, as I
have intimated, is a very entertaining book; it is the first of a series
of fourteen volumes by the same author, published in 1880 by the eminent
firm of Adam and Charles Black, of Edinburgh; the price of each volume is
two shillings, which is very moderate indeed, taking the character and
quality of the letterpress, the paper, and general "get up" into account,
for, as for the copyright, it has expired. Although Mr. Storrs Turner has
mis-described the book as a penitential effort on the part of De Quincey,
I am afraid that the effect of its perusal on most readers would be to
induce them rather to become opium eaters than repel them from the
practice, as will be manifest from an extract which I shall shortly give
the reader. The truth is, De Quincey, who knew human nature very well,
lived by his pen, and was actuated more by the desire to amuse than reform
his readers--for, say as you will, a well presented comedy will be always
more popular with the multitude than a tragedy, however skilfully
performed. Now, I am far from impugning the main features of our author's
"confessions," but in saying that in writing this very fascinating and
original book he went extensively into the picturesque, and drew largely
on his imagination, no person who will afford himself the pleasure of
reading the book can, I think, deny. Now, some very zealous agent or
advocate of the Anti-Opium Society, fearing that the effect of this work
of De Quincey's--brought as it has been into notice in connection with
this controversy by Mr. Turner's and my own book--might be to induce the
reading public to think that opium, after all, was not so terrible a drug
as the Anti-Opium agitators represent, has set himself to the ignoble task
of so garbling the work, and importing into it other matter of his own, as
to represent opium eating as the most terrible, fearful, and demoralizing
practice in the world, and then printing the concoction and flooding the
country with the impudent travesty at the very moderate charge of one
penny. All the entertaining and diverting passages have been suppressed,
and some wretched stuff inserted. It is called on the title page "The
Confessions of an Opium Eater; the famous work by Thomas De Quincey.
Copyright edition." The whole is nothing more than a burlesque--and a very
bad one indeed--of the real volume. In the first place, there is a lie
upon the face of it, as the copyright has expired, and it is not in any
respect a copy of the original; and secondly, it barely contains one-sixth
of the matter of the actual volume, and has "counterfeit" stamped upon
every page. It was exposed at the various book-stalls of Messrs. W. H.
Smith and Son, in London, and, I believe, also throughout the country. I
myself bought two copies at the Charing Cross station a few months ago,
but I believe the delectable piece of literary forgery has since been
withdrawn. I daresay, however, it has, to a great extent, answered its
purpose, _i.e._ to poison the minds of its readers on the Opium question,
by making it appear that opium is a terrible poison, and that the smoking
of it is more injurious than the excessive indulgence in alcohol. This
"pious fraud" has done a grievous wrong to the memory of a great English
author, Thomas De Quincey--whose pure and classic English adorns our
language--and also an injury to the general public who have advanced their
money for the penny lie upon false pretences. The whole affair is just as
defensible a proceeding as that of some tenth-rate dauber who, having
copied (?) a masterpiece of Sir Joshua Reynolds, or some other great
master of the English school, had the miserable caricature oleographed,
and flooded the country with the imposture, in the hope of inducing the
public to believe that true copies of the originals were offered to them.
But these Anti-Opium fanatics do not stick at trifles, and, in their
insane desire to make right appear wrong, do not hesitate to defame the
dead and vilify the living. I have mentioned this incident to show my
readers the unscrupulous efforts these people will resort to in order to
impose their fictions upon the public.
Now, leaving De Quincey and his book for the present, let us see what Dr.
Ayres says upon the difference between opium eating and opium smoking. In
his article in _The Friend of China_, from which I have already quoted, he
says:--
I have conducted my observations with much interest, as the effects of
opium eating are well known to me by many years' experience in India,
and I have been surprised to find the opium smoker differs so much
from the opium eater. _I am inclined to the belief that in the popular
mind the two have got confused together. Opium smoking bears no
comparison with opium eating._ The latter is a terrible vice, most
difficult to cure, and showing rapidly very marked constitutional
effects in the consumer.
Dr. Ayres was quite right, the two have got mixed up together, thanks to
Mr. Storrs Turner and his confrères. To further explain the difference
between opium eating and opium smoking, let us take the familiar instance
of tobacco smoking. It is not, I think, generally known that tobacco,
taken internally, is a violent and almost instantaneous poison. A very
small quantity of it admitted into the stomach produces speedy death, and
it is a wonder to some medical men that its use has not been made
available by assassins for their foul and deadly purposes. Tobacco has no
medicinal properties; it is simply known to chemists and physicians as a
poison. Its alkaloid, or active principle, is nicotine, a poison of so
deadly and instantaneous a nature as to rank with aconite, strychnine, and
prussic acid. Of the four, indeed, it takes the lead. In Taylor's "Medical
Jurisprudence," to which I have already referred, it is laid down at page
321, under the head of "Poisoning by Tobacco":--
The effects which this substance produces when taken in a large dose,
either in the form of powder or infusion, are well marked. The
symptoms are faintness, nausea, vomiting, giddiness, delirium, loss of
power in the limbs, general relaxation of the muscular system,
trembling, complete prostration of strength, coldness of the surface
with cold clammy perspiration, convulsive movements, paralysis and
death. In some cases there is purging, with violent pain in the
abdomen; in others there is rather a sense of sinking or depression in
the region of the heart, passing into syncope, or creating a sense of
impending dissolution. With the above-mentioned symptoms there is
dilatation of the pupils, dimness of sight with confusion of ideas, a
small, weak, and scarcely-perceptible pulse, and difficulty of
breathing. Poisoning by tobacco has not often risen to medico-legal
discussion. This is the more remarkable as it is an easily accessible
substance, and the possession of it would not, as in the case of other
poisons, excite surprise or suspicion. In June, 1854, a man was
charged with the death of an infant, of ten weeks, by poisoning it
with tobacco. He placed a quantity of tobacco in the mouth of the
infant, with the view, as he stated, of making it sleep. The infant
was completely narcotized, and died on the second day.... Tobacco owes
its poisonous properties to the presence of a liquid volatile
alkaloid, _nicotina_.