LATTER STAGES.--THE OPIUM APPETITE.--CIRCEAN POWER OF OPIUM.--AS A
MEDICINE.--DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CONDITION OF VICTIM IN PRIMARY AND
SECONDARY STAGES.
I am no physician, and not learned in physiology, therefore I cannot enter
into a learned analysis of the opium appetite. Neither have I read any
books upon the subject. I know nothing about the matter save from my own
observation or experience. But whether I know _why this_ is true, or
_that_ is _so_, or not, one fact I am entirely conscious of, and that is,
that in this appetite abides the enslaving power of opium. The influences
of opium in the latter stages would not have such an attraction for the
habituate but that he could easily forego them; but the appetite comes in
and makes him feel that he _must_ have opium if he has existence, and
there is an end to all resistance. Here dwell the Circean spells of opium.
Should one become accustomed to large doses, or rather a large quantity
per diem, it is almost impossible to induce the mind to take less, for
fear of falling to pieces, going into naught, etc. It seems in such a
state that existence would be insupportable were a reduction made. An
intense fear of being plunged into an abyss of darkness and despair
besets the mind. Hence the opium eater goes on ever increasing until his
final doom.
Opium as a medicine is a grand and powerful remedy, and without a
substitute, though as imperfectly understood in its complex action and
far-reaching consequences by the mass of the medical profession as by the
people at large. Its abstruser mysteries and remoter effects are yet to be
discovered and developed by the science of physic.
When the true nature of opium becomes generally known (and by the word
nature I mean all the possibilities for good and evil embraced in the
medical properties of the drug), the poor victim of its terrors will be
taken by the hand and sympathized with by his fellow-man, instead of being
ostracized from society, and treated with contempt and reprehension, as he
now is.
The difference between the condition of the victim in the primary, as
contrasted with that in the secondary or advanced stages, consists in
this: Of course, it is a self-evident proposition, from the description I
have given of the effects of opium, that the longer a human being is
subjected to the suffering it inflicts, the worse he will look, feel, and
actually be. But to take the same man out of the advanced stages, and
compare him with himself in the first stages, there will be found
difference enough between the two living testimonies to the power of
opium to interest the investigator, and repay him for the labor required
to make the comparison. In the first stages, opium commits its ravages on
the human system by expansion and explosion; in the after stages, it does
its work by contraction and compression; the weary victim totters beneath
a heavy load.
In the first stages he has occasional periods of enjoyment; in the latter
he has none; he is so benumbed by opium as to be incapable of enjoyment.
Temporary manumission from positive pain or distress only brings out into
stronger relief his miserable situation. He sees and feels that he is not
happy; cannot be at his best; and yet his sensibilities are so impervious
to all deep feeling, that it is impossible for him to give way to the
luxury of weeping,--the solace of tears. His heart is as "dry" and as dead
"as summer dust." The same numbness and deadness isolate him from the
enjoyment of the society of his fellow-man. He has lost all capacity or
capability to enjoy. He likewise has lost all interest in the things in
which mankind generally take pleasure. He has lost all power to take
interest in them. The world to him is a "sterile promontory," a "foul and
pestilent congregation of vapors." "Man delights not him."
In addition to the general deadness of the sensibilities, the buried-alive
condition of the victim, he suffers daily misery and sometimes agony from
the abnormal condition of the stomach and bowels produced by opium. The
stomach is dry and hard,--dead as the rest of the physical man. The least
variation in the dose deranges everything, and brings on a horrible
indigestion. This, whether the variation be on the side of less or more;
each holds in store its peculiar retribution for law violated. Too little
may have some appetite (and may not), but no digestion. Too much may have
a little appetite, but no digestion. In either case there may be no
appetite at all. To subtract a certain quantity would be _certain_ to
upset the stomach, both for appetite and digestion. To add a certain
quantity, would be to so benumb the stomach as to prevent all appetite,
relish, and digestion. In the one case--too little--it is a lack of
strength in the stomach; in the other--too much--the organ is already
satiated by opium, and desires no food.
During the seasons of taking too much (that is, per day, and not per
dose), that frequently assail the opium eater, and which, as I have before
stated, it is almost impossible to break up, the poor unfortunate passes
"a weary time," silent, passive, dead, in the day; at night deprived of
natural sleep; arising in the morning in a suicidal state of mind, he
lives "an unloved, solitary thing;" knowing himself to be miserable, yet
dreading other evils from taking less; until at last, nature becoming
exhausted, sickness, and consequent distaste for, and failure of effect
in, opium come to his relief. O God! O God! believe me, reader, 'tis no
chimera: I suffer daily untold misery, and some days my wretched condition
is almost intolerable.
The inability to take a reasonable quantity is, of course, one of the
greatest misfortunes in the habit of opium eating. Jeremy Taylor says that
in the regenerate person it sometimes comes to pass that the "old man" is
so used to obey that, like the Gibeonites, he is willing to do inferior
offices for the simple privilege of abiding in the land. Not so with the
opium fiend; he thinks it better to "reign in hell than to serve in
heaven;" his reign is absolute wherever he takes up his residence. "There
is a medium in all things" except opium eating; there it is up hill and
down dale; the poor victim is tossed about like a mariner at sea. But,
speaking of mariners, his condition is more like that of the "Ancient
Mariner" than is the condition of any one else like his. To him frequently
in dreams, both day and night,
"Slimy things _do_ crawl with legs upon the slimy sea."
There was a period in my experience, now happily passed, thank heaven,
when day or night I need only shut my eyes to see groups of enormous
sea-monsters and serpents, with frightful heads, coiling and intercoiling
about one another. You may, dear reader, whoever you are, rest assured
that I indulged this privilege as seldom as possible. During that season,
too, I suffered acutely from horrible dreams at night, waking in depths of
gloom so appalling, so overpowered and undone, that I could not have borne
it to have remained alone. Indeed, I became so afflicted with these
nightmares (night horrors being the products of opium), that my wife was
charged to turn me clear over and wake me up on the least evidence that I
was suffering from one of them. This evidence, she said, came from me in
the character of low, painful moans; I, conscious of my predicament when
at the worst, always struggled with all my strength, and strained every
nerve to cry out at the top of my voice:--I was perfectly powerless. I
have always thought it the acme of the ridiculous to attribute to the
peculiar formation of De Quincey's brain a special aptitude for dreaming
magnificent dreams. Let any one, bold enough to undertake so costly an
experiment, try the virtues of opium in the capacity of producing dreams,
and, my word for it, he will either claim a special aptitude for dreaming
himself, or, with me, give all the credit to the subtle and mighty powers
of opium.