[101] Dr. Tanner’s Practice of Medicine. Dr. Moore. For an interesting comparison between opium and alcohol, we may refer our readers to De Quincey’s Confessions of an Opium Eater.
[102] Twenty-five drops of laudanum = 1 grain of opium ∴ 8,000 drops = 320 grains; but Dr. Myers tells us that 2 grains of opium swallowed = 1 mace (58 grains) smoked, so that De Quincey took what was equivalent to 160 mace smoked.
[103] Theodore Gautier maintains that “the love of the ideal is so innate in man that he attempts, as far as he can, to relax the ties which bind body to soul; and as the means of being in an ecstatic state are not in the power of all, one drinks for gaiety, another smokes for forgetfulness, a third devours momentary madness.”
[104] It is indeed said of Ennius that he sought inspiration in the flowing bowl; that he never
“Nisi potus ad arma
Exsiluit dicenda.”—Hor.
But then, as Praed says, “poets tell confounded lies,” and this may be one of them. Coleridge, in later times, is said to have sought the same inspiration from opium; and poems like “Kubla Khan” testify that he found it.
[105] Enough, as Mr. Brereton says, to form a devil’s punchbowl huge enough for all the population of the British Isles to swim in at the same time.
[106] Dr. Norman Kerr in a paper read at the Social Science Congress.
[107] “Any serious attempt to check the evil must originate with the people themselves,” said the Chinese Commissioners to Sir Thomas Wade.
[108] To chastise the insolent barbarian, as Lord Palmerston put it to his electors at Tiverton.