AN OPIUM EATER.
Almost at the next door from me was an opium eater. He, like the female
whose case was described in the preceding chapter, was not far from
three score and ten, and was of industrious and, in many respects,
temperate habits. And yet he was one of the most inveterate and
abandoned voluntary slaves to the drug opium I have ever seen. He had
used it largely thirty years.
His case is the more singular from the fact that he became enslaved to
it so very early. To use opium or laudanum at the present day, I grant
is no uncommon occurrence. We may often find six, eight, or ten opium
takers in a single township, if not a single village, or even a single
neighborhood; and the number is rapidly increasing. Opium has not that
offensive appearance to many that tobacco has, and a much larger amount
of stimulus may be kept in a very small space, perhaps in the very
corner of the smallest pocket.
Another circumstance which rendered the case of my opium-taking neighbor
somewhat striking, was his usual good health. I say, here, _usual_, for
there were exceptions which will appear presently. Yet though he was
nearly threescore and ten, this man had, while under the influence of
his accustomed stimulus, as much elasticity and nearly as much strength
as most men of thirty.
How could this happen, you will naturally ask, if opium is such a deadly
narcotic as some medical men proclaim it to be? How can a person, male
or female, begin its use at forty and continue it to seventy years of
age, and yet be, for the most part, strong and healthy?
In the first place, we must remember the force of habit. We have seen
how it is with alcoholic drinks and tobacco. I might tell you how it is
with arsenic, which is beginning to be taken, it is said, by men and
horses, both in the old world and the new. I might even give you the
story of Mithridates, king of Pontus, who is said to have so accustomed
himself to hemlock,--the most deadly poison of his time,--that in any
ordinary dose, it would not affect him injuriously, or, at least, would
not do so immediately.
We must remember, in the second place, the active, industrious habits of
this patient--of which, however, I have already spoken. He who is always
or almost always in the open air, is less likely to suffer from the use
of extra stimulants, and the penalty when it _does_ fall on his head, is
much more likely to be deferred, than in the case of the sedentary and
inactive. He was so hardy and withal so bold, that in the summer season
he sometimes slept in the open air, under a tree.
But, thirdly, he was descended from a very long-lived race or family.
His father died at the age of ninety-seven. At the time of his decease
he had been the progenitor of nineteen children, one hundred and five
grandchildren, one hundred and fifty-five great grandchildren, and four
of the fifth generation,--a posterity amounting in all, to two hundred
and eighty-three. And what is most marvellous, nearly all of them were
at that very moment living. In truth, he had several sons and daughters
already between the ages of sixty-five and eighty. There was one of the
brotherhood, whom I had seen, nearly eighty, and yet as active and
elastic as the opium eater of seventy.
One thing more: The latter, as we have seen, was a man of excellent
habits in respect to nearly every thing but opium. He drank no ardent
spirits, nor much coffee and tea; he used very little tobacco, and he
ate in great moderation. He was an early riser and was in general
cheerful. In short, but for his opium taking, he would have enjoyed a
green old age.
I have said he was usually healthy. When he was out of opium and could
not obtain any, I have seen him sit and writhe in the most intense
apparent anguish till the arrival of the accustomed stimulus, when the
transformation would be as sudden as it was striking. In fifteen
minutes, instead of writhing and groaning and almost dying, he might be
found talking, laughing, and telling stories most merrily, to the
infinite amusement of all around him.
But he had troubles more abiding than this; at least, occasionally.
After taking his opium for a long time, such a degree of costiveness
would sometimes supervene, as seemed almost to defy the combined powers
of both nature and art. In these circumstances, of course, the aid of
the physician was usually invoked. It was on one of these occasions that
I first became fully acquainted with his habits and tendencies.
Once, when thus called to his bedside, I began to think he was not very
far from the end of his career. The wheels of life seemed so completely
obstructed, that I doubted whether they would ever start again. He
himself declared, most positively and I doubt not in sincerity that he
must die. But he lived on many years longer. He died at about
seventy-five years of age--more than twenty years younger than his
venerable and more temperate father.
From this distinguished opium eater, and from his family, I learned two
things: First, that Solomon was right when he spoke of the certainty of
punishment, even though long deferred. Secondly, the certainty of the
visitation, so to call it, of human transgression upon subsequent
generations no less than on the individual transgressor. The fourth
generation from the patriarch of ninety-seven was puny and
feeble--exceedingly so; the fifth and sixth not only puny and feeble,
but absolutely sickly, not to say dwarfish.
Did I say I learned these important truths from this source? Not at all.
I mean only, that I received from it a new confirmation of what I had
fully believed long before, and concerning which, till compelled, most
men--even some thinking men--appear to me not a little sceptical. They
seem to think it reflects dishonor on our Maker. How this is, we shall
perhaps see more fully in another place. Let it suffice, for the
present, to say that the fact itself is fully established, whatever may
be the deductions or its consequences.