The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1875-09-04
Choral Eating In England.

George Stables, VI. D.. r. n, in the April mum
Der of Bel9rdria. gives his experience as a chloral.
eater. Most persons have read Thomas de
Quincey's = Confessions of an Opium-eater,; which
was more calculated by its literary charm and the
romantic halo thrown around that indulgence in
opium, 10 impress in favor of the practice of
opium-eating than to deter anybody from resort 20
that fascinating but perilous stimulant. In the
Lancet of last December it was stated that there
was a great deal of chloral-eating, although choral
was a poison for which it was doubtful whether
there was any antidote and DIR. Stables comes
forward, impelled by public duty and inspired by
the hope that he may save " not a few from one of
the most lingering and awful of deaths, and avert
misery and ruin from many 4 family in England
The source of the great danger of which he is
apprehensive is a " horrid drug which he de-
scribes as q salt, of a burning, pungent taste,
having a great affinity for water its basis, chloro-
form, into which the accepted opinion is that it is
changed in the blood. A small dose is stimula-
ting and antispasmodic; a large dose, narcotic,
deadly as the electric bolt. 1t is so far like opium,
and indeed like all stimulants, that to keep up the
same effect the dose must be increased. The effect
of choral on a I" real chlorat-eater (" is in part
stimulating, in part soothing the stimulation,
however, unlike that caused by opium or alcohol
Il hot AIii ttiliSy dIiu ACii III ~ DOuAiy
nor mental activity. but raises the mind above
cares and sorrows and fatigues and battles the
world, the past, the present, and the future, in a
roseate light. at the same time b~anishing affection
and love from this condition of perfect peace.
The subject of the influence of this extraordinary
drug grows ~apathetic and careless OF everything
but his own ease and comfort, and becomes merely
"a living, breathing vegetable who could stand
by his mothers deathbed smiling and wear an air
of placid triumph on the threshold of the gallows.
4 second dose without an interval Of rest makes
the chlOralist drunk ; his eyelids droop and his
gait becomes unsteady. Drunk in the :" first
degree your chloralist is by no means an I'M
pleasant companion-genial, aud though not
brilliant, a good listener. He may be reused into
fierce outbursts Of passion, which die away, leav-
ing him perfectly placid. So far in the general.
We now come TO our ~essayist's own experience.
In the early stages he used to take a &" pick-me-
up " when going on a railway journey, with the
happy result of banishing all sense OF fatigue. and
of the unpleasant motion of the cars. He was
" lifted out of himself spirit travelling by train
and the ever varying scenery went past me
like an enchanted iorama.' Unlike opium, which
creates beautiful Authorizations, choral &" merely
increases the power of enjoying the real" In the
December of 1871, when medical men were landing
choral to the skies, DR.. Stables became a CHORAL
ist. together with other friends, who quickly
succumbed and died, having passed through the
agonies of despair, Characteristic Of the later
stages OF chloralism. Being overworked he could
not sleep, and took q dose of choral, whereupon
he slept like a top until morning. Having repeated
the dose every night Tor a week he tried TO sleep
one night without the sid of it and failed. He, of
course, took 10 it again, and found after some time
that he had little satisfaction from his sleep. After
a month he began to feel a strange heat on the top
of his head, together with a sense of fitness in 1t,
sud his nerves began 10 be- shaken, At length he