The Opium Habit
by Horace B. Day
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The Opium Habit Summary
| This volume has been compiled chiefly for the benefit of opium-eaters. Its subject is one indeed which might be made alike attractive to medical men who have a fancy for books that are professional only in an accidental way; to general readers who would like to see gathered into a single volume the scattered records of the consequences attendant upon the indulgence of a pernicious habit; and to moralists and philanthropists to whom its sad stories of infirmity and suffering might be suggestive of new themes and new objects upon which to bestow their reflections or their sympathies. |
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| To the opium-consumer, when deprived of this stimulant, there is nothing that life can bestow, not a blessing that man can receive, which would not come to him unheeded, undesired, and be a curse to him. There is but one all-absorbing want, one engrossing desire--his whole being has but one tongue--that tongue syllables but one word-- morphia. And oh! the vain, vain attempt to break this bondage, the labor worse than useless--a minnow struggling to break the toils that bind a Triton! |
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| This volume has been compiled chiefly for the benefit of opium-eaters. Its subject is one indeed which might be made alike attractive to medical men who have a fancy for books that are professional only in an accidental way; to general readers who would like to see gathered into a single volume the scattered records of the consequences attendant upon the indulgence of a pernicious habit; and to moralists and philanthropists to whom its sad stories of infirmity and suffering might be suggestive of new themes and new objects upon which to bestow their reflections or their sympathies. But for none of these classes of readers has the book been prepared. In strictness of language little medical information is commu-nicated by it. Incidentally, indeed, facts are stated which a thoughtful physician may easily turn to professional account. The literary man will naturally feel how much more attractive the book might have been made had these separate and sometimes disjoined threads of mournful personal histories been woven into a more coherent whole; but the book has not been made or literary men. |
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From the Introduction: "The number of confirmed opium-eaters in the United States is large,not less, judging from the testimony of druggists in all parts of thecountry as well as from other sources, than eighty to a hundredthousand. The reader may ask who make up this unfortunate class, andunder what circumstances did they become enthralled by such a habit?Neither the business nor the laboring classes of the countrycontribute very largely to the number. Professional and literary men,persons suffering from protracted nervous disorders, women obliged bytheir necessities to work beyond their strength, prostitutes, and, inbrief, all classes whose business or whose vices make special demandsupon the nervous system, are those who for the most part compose thefraternity of opium-eaters. The events of the last few years haveunquestionably added greatly to their number. Maimed and shatteredsurvivors from a hundred battle-fields, diseased and disabled soldiersreleased from hostile prisons, anguished and hopeless wives andmothers, made so by the slaughter of those who were dearest to them,have found, many of them, temporary relief from their sufferings inopium.There are two temperaments in respect to this drug. With persons whomopium violently constricts, or in whom it excites nausea, there islittle danger that its use will degenerate into a habit. Those,however, over whose nerves it spreads only a delightful calm, whosefeelings it tranquillizes, and in whom it produces an habitual stateof reverie, are those who should be upon their guard lest the drug towhich in suffering they owe so much should become in time the direstof curses. Persons of the first description need little caution, forthey are rarely injured by opium. Those of the latter class, who havealready become enslaved by the habit, will find many things in thesepages that are in harmony with their own experience; other things theywill doubtless find of which they have had no experience. Many of theparticular effects of opium differ according to the differentconstitutions of those who use it. In De Quincey it exhibited itspower in gorgeous dreams in consequence of some special tendency inthat direction in De Quincey's temperament, and not because dreamingis by any means an invariable attendant upon opium-eating. Differentraces also seem to be differently affected by its use. It seldom,perhaps never, intoxicates the European; it seems habitually tointoxicate the Oriental. It does not generally distort the person ofthe English or American opium-eater; in the East it is represented asfrequently producing this effect." ---Horace B. Day |
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