The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1881-10-05

can relieve. The agony Of this state is
indescribablo. the craving for opium 80
maddening and irresistible that no sac
rifice would be too great that would
afford relief.
The pleasures so ably described by
De Quincy are only for the tyro those
confirmed in the habit rarely taste them,
and only at the expense Of . consider
able increase of the dose. The latter
use the drug, not from the pleasureable
sensations experienced from its use, but
TO escape the misery resulting from alb
stinence therefrom. The opium fiend
lavishes his choicest pleasures upon
them while Turing them on, but now
that they are securely in his grasp such
favors are denied. A curious fact may
be mentioned in connection with this
/. e., dose of say three grains of NOR
phia taken regularly semi-daily pro-
duces in the consumer few Of the
exhilarating effects described but let
him be without the drug for consider
able time and one-half that quantity
will yield many of the old-time pleasures
Us if the fiend we're fearful of his vic
TINS escape and cunningly sought to
win him back by the means that had
previously proved so ef1icacious.
The quantity of opiates which the
system will learn by constant use to
tolerate is almost incredible. Few per
sons who have been subject to the habit
for year or more use less than from
five to ten grains of morphia, or its
equivalent in other preparations, daily.
Cases are not uncommon where one
dram (sixty grains1 was used each day;
and the superintendent Of Michigan
sanitarium related to the writer the case
of a lady who consumed ninety grains
per day. Indeed, it is difficult to con-
ceive to what extent the habit may be
carried when we bear in mind that there
is constant tendency to increase the
quantity consumed. The National Dis
penSdtory speaks of a woman forty
seven years of age who had used opium
since the age of seventeen without ex-
periencing any evil effects; and the New
York Medical Record records the case of
a British officer who for seventy years
had used opium-averaging during the
latter years ninety grains daily-who
had attained the extraordinary age of
Ill years, and was still in the enjoy
ment of excellent health.
The Chinese consume large quantities
of opium, and the people of the East
Mohammedans-us it as q stimulant,
alcoholic liquors being forbidden by
their religion. Such cases as those
mentioned in the Medical Record and
National DipenSGtOry are exceptional,
however, and prove nothing, except that
some people have remarkably good con-
stitutions, capable of withstanding an
extraordinary amount of abuse. The
Chinese. and Hindoos smoke opium,
while Europeans and Americans eat it;
and though the narcotic effects may be
as pronounced in one case as in the
other, it does not necessarily follow
that the constitutional effects must be
the same. 1t is also possible that the
more delicate nervous organization of
the Caucasian may render him more
susceptible to the deleterious effects of
narcotic stimulants than the Chinaman
or Hindoo. The emperor of China was
so impressed with a sense of the bale
full effects of opium that he refused to
allow its importation into his empire,
and finally yielded only at the point Of
the bayonet, after bloody and expen-
sive war with England, whose mer-
chants profit by the unholy traffic as
they did by the slave trade carried on
with the American colonies in years
gone by.
The direct constitutional effects aris-
ing from the use of opium are loss of
appetite, nervousness, tremor, insom-
mia, hyper@sthesia, lessened secretions,
emaciation and low temperature, the
two latter arising from the arrest of
metamorphosis, upon which the nutri-
tion and warmth of the body depend.
Among the remote effects are insanity
and host of nervous disorders too nu-
merous to mention Catholic World.