thor are his readers; and these it is a point of modesty in any author to believe as few as possible; or perhaps only one, in which case any promise imposes a sanctity of moral obligation which it is shocking to think of. Casuistry dismissed how ever, the author throws himself on the indulgent consideration of all who may conceive themselves aggrieved by his delay-in the following account of his own condition from the end of last year, when the engagement was made, up nearly to the present time. For any purpose of self-excuse, it might be sufficient to say that intolerable bodily suffering had totally disabled him for almost any exertion of mind, more especially for such as demand and presuppose a pleasurable and genial state of feeling: but, as a case that may by possibility contribute a trifle to the medical history of Opium, in a further stage of its action than can often have been brought under the notice of professional men, he has judged that it might be acceptable to some readers to have it described more at length. Fiat experimentum in corpore vili is a just rule where there is any reasonable presumption of benefit to arise on a large scale; what the benefit may be, will admit of a doubt: but there can be none as to the value of the body: for a more worthless body than his own, the author is free to confess, cannot be it is his pride to believe that it is the very ideal of a base, crazy, despicable human system-that hardly ever could have been meant to be sea-worthy for two days under the ordinary storms and wear-and-tear of life and indeed, if that were the creditable way of disposing of human bodies, he must own that he should almost be ashamed to bequeath his wretched structure to any respectable dog. But now to the case; which, for the sake of avoiding the constant recurrence of a cumbersome periphrasis, the author will take the liberty of giving in the first person.

Those who have read the Confessions will have closed them with the impression that I had wholly renounced the use of Opium. This impression I meant to convey: and that for two reasons: first, because the very act of deliberately recording

such a state of suffering necessarily presumes in the recorder a power of surveying his own case as a cool spectator, and a degree of spirits for adequately describing it, which it would be inconsistent to suppose in any person speaking from the station of an actual sufferer: secondly, because I, who had descended from so large a quantity as 8,000 drops to so small a one (comparatively speaking) as a quantity ranging between 300 and 160 drops, might well suppose that the victory was in effect achieved. In suffering my readers, therefore, to think of me as of a reformed Opium-eater, I left no impression but what I shared myself; and, as may be seen, even this impression was left to be collected from the general tone of the conclusion, and not from any specific words-which are in no instance at variance with the literal truth.-In no long time after that paper was written, I became sensible that the effort which remained would cost me far more energy than I had anticipated: and the necessity for making it was more apparent every month. In particular I became aware of an increasing callousness or defect of sensibility in the stomach; and this I imagined might imply a schirrous state of that organ either formed or forming. An eminent physician, to whose kindness I was at that time deeply indebted, informed me that such a termination of my case was not impossible, though likely to be forestalled by a different termination, in the event of my continuing the use of opium. Opium therefore I resolved wholly to abjure, as soon as I should find myself at liberty to bend my undivided attention and energy to this purpose. It was not however until the 24th of June last that any tolerable concurrence of facilities for such an attempt arrived. On that day I began my experiment, having previously settled in my own mind that I would not flinch, but would "stand up to the scratch"under any possible " punishment." I must premise that about 170 or 180 drops had been my ordinary allowance for many months: occasionally I had run up as high as 500; and once nearly to 700: in repeated preludes to my final experiment I had also gone as low as 100 drops; but had found it impossible to stand

it beyond the 4th day-which, by the way, I have always found more difficult to get over than any of the preceeding three. I went off under easy sail-130 drops a day for three days: on the fourth I plunged at once to 80: the misery which I now suffered "took the conceit" out of me at once and for about a month I continued off and on about this mark: then I sunk to 60: and the next day to none at all. This was the first day for nearly ten years that I had existed without opium. I persevered in my abstinence for 90 hours; i. e. upwards of half a week. Then I took ask me not how much: say, ye severest, what would ye have done? Then I abstained again: then took about 25 drops: then abstained: and so on.

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Meantime the symptoms which attended my case for the first six weeks of the experiment were these: -enormous irritability and excite ment of the whole system: the stomach in particular restored to a full feeling of vitality and sensibility; but often in great pain: unceasing restlessness night and day: sleep I scarcely knew what it was: three hours out of the twenty-four was the utmost I had, and that so agitated and shallow that I heard every sound that was near me: lower jaw constantly swelling: mouth ulcerated: and many other distressing symptoms that would be tedious to repeat; amongst which however I must mention one, because it had never failed to accompany any attempt to renounce opium-viz. violent sternutation: this now became exceedingly troublesome: sometimes lasting for two hours at once, and recurring at least twice or three times a day. I was not much surprised at this, on recollecting what I had some where heard or read, that the membrane which lines the nostrils is a prolongation of that which lines the stomach; whence, I believe, are ex plained the inflammatory appearances about the nostrils of dram-drinkers. The sudden restoration of its original sensibility to the stomach expressed itself, I suppose, in this way. It is remarkable also that, during the whole period of years through which I had taken opium, I had never once caught cold (as the phrase is), nor even the slightest

cough. But now a violent cold attacked me, and a cough soon after. In an unfinished fragment of a letter begun about this time to I find these words: "You ask me to write the Do you know Beaumont and Fletcher's play of Thierry and Theodoret? There you will see my case as to sleep: nor is it much of an exaggeration in other features.-I protest to you that I have a greater influx of thoughts in one hour at present than in a whole year under the reign of opium. It seems as though all the thoughts which had been frozen up for a decad of years by opium, had now, according to the old fable, been thawed at once-such a multitude stream in upon me from all quarters. Yet such is my impatience and hideous irrita bility-that, for one which I detain and write down, fifty escape me: in spite of my weariness from suffering and want of sleep, I cannot stand still or sit for two minutes together. I nunc, et versus tecum meditare canoros.'

At this stage of my experiment I sent to a neighbouring surgeon, requesting that he would come over to see me. In the evening he came : and after briefly stating the case to him, I asked this question:-Whether he did not think that the opium might have acted as a stimulus to the digestive organs; and that the present state of suffering in the stomach, which manifestly was the cause of the inability to sleep, might arise from indigestion? His answer was -No: on the contrary he thought that the suffering was caused by di gestion itself-which should naturally go on below the consciousness, but which from the unnatural state of the stomach, vitiated by so long a use of opium, was become distinctly perceptible. This opinion was plausi ble: and the unintermitting nature of the suffering disposes me to think that it was true: for, if it had been any mere irregular affection of the stomach, it should naturally have intermitted occasionally, and constantly fluctuated as to degree. The intention of nature, as manifested in the healthy state, obviously is--to withdraw from our notice all the vital motions, such as the circulation of the blood, the expansion and contraction of the lungs, the peristaltic action of

the stomach, &c.; and opium, it seems, is able in this, as in other instances, to counteract her purposes.By the advice of the surgeon I tried bitters: for a short time these greatly mitigated the feelings under which I laboured: but about the forty-second day of the experiment the symptoms already noticed began to retire, and new ones to arise of a different and far more tormenting class: under these, but with a few intervals of remission, I have since continued to suffer. But I dismiss them undescribed for two reasons: 1st, because the mind revolts from retracing circumstantial ly any sufferings from which it is removed by too short or by no interval: to do this with minute ness enough to make the review of any use-would be indeed " infandum renovare dolorem," and possibly with out a sufficient motive: for 2dly, I doubt whether this latter state be any way referrible to opium-positively considered, or even negatively; that is, whether it is to be numbered amongst the last evils from the direct action of opium, or even amongst the earliest evils consequent upon a want of opium in a system long deranged by its use. Certainly one part of the symptoms might be ac counted for from the time of year (August): for, though the summer was not a hot one, yet in any case the sum of all the heat funded (if one may say so) during the previous months, added to the existing heat of that month, naturally renders August in its better half the hottest part of the year: and it so happened that the excessive perspiration, which even at Christmas attends any great reduction in the daily quantum of opium-and which in July was so violent as to oblige me to use a bath five or six times a day, had about the setting in of the hottest season wholly retired: on which account any bad effect of the heat might be the more unmitigated. Another symptom, viz. what in my ignorance I call internal rheumatism

(sometimes affecting the shoulders, &c., but more often appearing to be seated in the stomach), seemed again less probably attributable to the opium or the want of opium than to the dampness of the house* which I inhabit, which had about that time attained its maximum-July having been, as usual, a month of incessant rain in our most rainy part of England.

Under these reasons for doubting whether opium had any connexion with the latter stage of my bodily wretchedness (except indeed as an occasional cause, as having left the body weaker and more crazy, and thus predisposed to any mal-influence whatever),-1 willingly spare my reader all description of it: let it perish to him: and would that I could as easily say, let it perish to my own remembrances: that any future hours of tranquillity may not be disturbed by too vivid an ideal of possible human misery!

So much for the sequel of my experiment: as to the former stage, in which properly lies the experiment and its application to other cases, I must request my reader not to forget the reasons for which I have recorded it: these were two: 1st, a belief that I might add some trifle to the history of opium as a medical agent: in this I am aware that I have not at all fulfilled my own intentions, in consequence of the torpor of mindpain of body- and extreme disgust to the subject which besieged me whilst writing that part of my paper; which part, being immediately sent off to the press (distant about five degrees of latitude), cannot be corrected or improved. But from this account, rambling as it may be, it is evident that thus much of benefit may arise to the persons most interested in such a history of opium— viz. to Opium-eaters in general—that it establishes, for their consolation and encouragement, the fact that opium may be renounced; and without greater sufferings than an ordi