It is true that the opium smoker eats less, but this is because his secretions are diminished so that he becomes constipated, and as it were uses his food over and over again. It makes me sick to think about it. No wonder he suffers from auto-toxaemia, and becomes yellow, weak and emaciated. The amount of opium a healthy person can consume daily without injury is absolutely nil. There is no room for the comparative degree in opium smoking.
Any amount is already too much.
All opium smoking is injurious. An opium smoking soldier is not worth the powder and lead it would take to kill him. Furthermore, clinical experience has amply proved that opium smokers do not bear chloroform well, that they succumb more quickly to injuries and surgical operations, and that they possess much less power of resistance than non-smokers to the inroads of acute disease. Many rich Chinese smoke all night and sleep nearly all day. If a smoker gets ill, except in some acute violent sickness such as pneumonia, he smokes more and more, and the more chronic the disease the more firmly established the habit.