If I’d only cultivated, now, a taste for beer or gin, Or had learnt at Pool or Baccarat my neighbour’s coin to win, I could roam abroad o’ nights, And indulge in these delights, And my soul would not be stigmatized as being steeped in sin!
But as mine’s a heathen weakness for a creature-comfort, far Less pernicious than their alcohol, more clean than their cigar, They have sent their howlings forth, From their platform in the North, And ’twixt me and my poor pleasures have imposed a righteous bar!
There are two modes of taking opium. It is either eaten in its crude form, or it is clarified with water and smoked in a pipe of peculiar construction.
It is generally conceded that opium smoking is less injurious than opium eating, bulk for bulk, of the amount consumed, and that the intemperate or immoderate opium smoker is less liable to the toxic effects of opium than the man who eats it raw. Why this is will be clear when it is explained that as a result of the process of preparation for smoking it, which consists in boiling opium with water, filtering several times, and boiling it down again to a treacly consistency, a considerable portion of the narcotine, caoutchouc, resin, and other deleterious elements are removed, and this prolonged boiling and evaporation have the effect of lessening the amount of alkaloids in the finished product. The only alkaloids likely to remain in the prepared opium, and capable of producing marked physiological effects, are morphia, codeia, and narceia. Morphia in its unmixed state can be sublimed; but codeia and narceia are said not to give a sublimate. But even if not sublimed in the process, morphia would, in the opinion of Mr. Hugh M’Callum (Government Analyst at Hong Kong), be deposited in the bowl of the pipe before the smoke reached the mouth of the smoker. The bitter taste of morphia is not noticeable when smoking opium, and it is therefore possible that the pleasure derived from smoking opium is due to some product formed during combustion. This supposition is rendered probable by the fact that the opium most prized by smokers is not that containing the most morphia.
But what constitutes moderation or the reverse? The answer is idiosyncrasy, or the degree of toleration. This is a factor which is lost sight of by most of those who declaim against the occasional glass or pipe. They wish to push temperance to the point of total abstinence, and condemn the man who takes a peg of whisky without evil results, with the man who becomes maudlin after taking a single glass of white wine, for it is only by outward appearances they are able to judge. But leaving them to rage in their ignorance, we must recognise the fact that opium is one of those drugs the effects of which depend largely upon personal idiosyncrasy and toleration. Dr. Chapman, in his _Elements of Therapeutics_, gives two instances of remarkable cases of toleration of opium. In one, a wineglassful of laudanum was taken by a patient several times in the twenty-four hours; and in another, a case of cancer, the quantity of laudanum was gradually increased to three pints daily, a considerable quantity of crude opium being also taken in the same period!