The English extract is that usually employed for medicinal purposes, and for the production of intoxication.
The only habituè that I have known was a woman, thirty-eight years of age, who consumed, daily, nine grains of the English extract. She would roll it up into a little lump, knead it for some time between the fingers, and then placing it in the bowl of a common clay pipe, partly filled with tobacco, light it, and inhale the smoke. This was done twice daily, about four and a half grains being used at a time. Sometimes she would go a week at a time—at least so she said—without using any; but I suspect that on those days when she did not smoke it, she used it by the stomach.
She was of an intensely nervous temperament, formerly addicted to the excessive use of alcoholic stimulants; of sallow complexion, dull eyes, pupils always widely dilated, pulse slow and irregular, occasionally intermitting a beat; heart sounds feeble, body poorly nourished, skin dry, bowels usually loose, appetite poor, and urine scanty and high colored, but free from casts, albumen or sugar. She had been using the drug in this way about eighteen months, and found it necessary to occasionally increase her doses. She complained, especially in the morning, when waking from her almost cataleptic state, of intense pain in the left side of the head, and along the course of the sciatic nerve of the same side.
She began to use the drug through curiosity, having read of its peculiar effects, and being extremely desirous of finding something to supply the place of the alcohol, to which she had become a slave.
When not under the influence of the drug her intellect was dull and sluggish, and her temper, at times, bad and unreasoning. During the night, when most completely under the influence of hemp, her dreams were highly pleasurable; she seeming to live in a different world, a thought being answered by its accomplishment, a wish by its fulfillment; distances were traversed in a few seconds; feasts, marked by plenty and variety, the food on dishes of gold, studded with diamonds and other precious stones, were set before her. Everything was done on a scale of magnificence. At times the dreams partook of a highly lascivious character. She assured me that she seemed to be living a double life—the one the real, the other that produced by the hemp. In the latter the incidents of one night’s dreams seemed to follow as regularly, and the characters to be as real, as the incidents and people of every day life.
There was one peculiarity: if she took a little more than her usual allowance of the drug, she found her dreams of an entirely different nature; not pleasant, but inexpressibly horrible, new faces and new scenes taking the place of the usual ones, the thread of her dream romance being suddenly snapped. The same thing occurred, though not so markedly, if she took less than the usual amount.
Before commencing the use of this drug she was in fair health, stout, and when not under the influence of liquor, bright and cheerful.
She passed entirely away from my observation, and I have never since been able to learn what became of her, though I heard once that she had died, how or when I do not know.
I once saw her in one of those deep sleeps produced by hashisch, and noted that there seemed to be complete anæsthesia, deep snoring respiration, thirteen to the minute, dilated and irregular pupils, purplish congestion of the face and conjunctivæ, and a spasmodic twitching of the left eyelid that lasted all the time I was with her—two hours.
She was possessed of some money, and was very highly educated. She claimed to be the widow of an English army surgeon.