He says[104]:—
“When given in full doses, cannabis Indica produces a feeling of exhilaration, with a condition of reverie, and a train of mental and nervous phenomena, which varies very much according to the temperament or idiosyncrasies of the subject, and very probably also, to some extent, according to the nature of his surroundings. The sensations are generally spoken of as very pleasurable; often beautiful visions float before the eyes, and a sense of ecstacy fills the whole being; sometimes the venereal appetites are greatly excited; sometimes loud laughter, constant giggling, and other indications of mirth are present. Some years since, in experimenting with the American extract, I took a very large dose, and in the essay upon the subject (Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 1869, vol. xi. p. 226), the result was described as follows:—
“About half-past four P.M., September 23, I took most of the extract. No immediate symptoms were produced. About seven P.M. a professional call was requested, and, forgetting all about the hemp, I went out and saw my patient. While writing the prescription I became perfectly oblivious to surrounding objects, but went on writing, without any check to or deviation from the ordinary series of mental acts connected with the process, at least that I am aware of. When the recipe was finished, I suddenly recollected where I was, and, looking up, saw my patient sitting quietly before me. The conviction was irresistible that I had sat thus many minutes, perhaps hours, and directly the idea fastened itself that the hemp had commenced to act, and had thrown me into a trance-like state of considerable duration, during which I had been stupidly sitting before my wondering patient. I hastily arose and apologized for remaining so long, but was assured I had only been a very few minutes. About seven and a half P.M. I returned home. I was by this time quite excited, and the feeling of hilarity now rapidly increased. It was not a sensuous feeling, in the ordinary meaning of the term; it was not merely an intellectual excitation; it was a sort of bien-être—the very opposite to malaise. It did not come from without; it was not connected with any passion or sense. It was simply a feeling of inner joyousness; the heart seemed buoyant beyond all trouble; the whole system felt as though all sense of fatigue were forever banished; the mind gladly ran riot, free constantly to leap from one idea to another, apparently unbound from its ordinary laws. I was disposed to laugh; to make comic gestures; one very frequently recurrent fancy was to imitate with the arms the motions of a fiddler, and with the lips the tune he was supposed to be playing. There was nothing like wild delirium, nor any hallucinations that I remember. At no time had I any visions, or at least any that I can now call to mind; but a person who was with me at that time states that once I raised my head and exclaimed, ‘Oh, the mountains! the mountains!’ While I was performing the various antics already alluded to, I knew very well I was acting exceedingly foolishly, but could not control myself. I think it was about eight o’clock when I began to have a feeling of numbness in my limbs, also a sense of general uneasiness and unrest, and a fear lest I had taken an overdose. I now constantly walked about the house; my skin, to myself, was warm—in fact, my whole surface felt flushed; my mouth and throat were very dry; my legs put on a strange, foreign feeling, as though they were not a part of my body. I counted my pulse and found it one hundred and twenty, quite full and strong. A foreboding, an undefined, horrible fear, as of impending death, now commenced to creep over me; in haste I sent for medical aid. The curious sensations in my limbs increased. My legs felt as though they were waxen pillars beneath me. I remember feeling them with my hand and finding them, as I thought, at least, very firm, the muscles all in a state of tonic contraction. About eight o’clock I began to have marked ‘spells’—periods when all connection seemed to be severed between the external world and myself. I might be said to have been unconscious during these times, in so far that I was oblivious to all external objects, but on coming out of one it was not a blank, dreamless void, upon which I looked back, a mere empty space, but rather a period of active but aimless life. I do not think there was any connected thought in them; they seemed simply wild reveries, without any binding cord—each a mere chaos of disjointed ideas. The mind seemed freed from its ordinary laws of association, so that it passed from idea to idea, as it were, perfectly at random. The duration of these spells, to me, was very great, although they really lasted but a few seconds to a minute or two. Indeed, I now entirely lost my power of measuring time. Seconds seemed hours; minutes seemed days; hours seemed infinite. Still I was perfectly conscious during the intermissions between the paroxysms. I would look at my watch, and then, after an hour or two, as I thought, would look again, and find that scarcely five minutes had elapsed. I would gaze at its face in deep disgust, the minute-hand seemingly motionless, as though graven in the face itself; the laggard second-hand moving slowly, so slowly it appeared a hopeless task to watch during its whole infinite round of a minute, and always would I give it up in despair before the sixty seconds had elapsed. Occasionally, when my mind was most lucid, there was in it a sort of duplex action in regard to the duration of time. I would think to myself, it has been so long since a certain event—an hour, for example, since the doctor came; and then reason would say, no, it has been only a few minutes; your thoughts or feelings are caused by the hemp. Nevertheless, I was not able to shake off this sense of the almost indefinite prolongation of time, even for a minute. The paroxysms already alluded to were not accompanied with muscular relaxation. About a quarter before nine o’clock I was standing at the door, anxiously watching for the doctor, and when the spells would come on I would remain standing, leaning slightly, perhaps, against the doorway. After awhile I saw a man approaching, whom I took to be the doctor. The sound of his steps told me he was walking very rapidly, and he was under a gas-lamp, not more than one-fourth of a square distant, yet he appeared a vast distance away, and a corresponding time approaching. This was the only occasion in which I noticed an exaggeration of distance; in the room it was not perceptible. My extremities now began to grow cold, and I went into the house. I do not remember further, until I was aroused by the doctor shaking or calling me. Then intellection seemed pretty good. I narrated what I had done and suffered, and told the doctor my opinion was that an emetic was indicated, both to remove any of the extract still remaining in my stomach, and also to arouse the nervous system. I further suggested our going into the office, as more suitable than the parlor, where we then were. There was at this time a very marked sense of numbness in my limbs, and what the doctor said was a hard pinch produced no pain. When I attempted to walk up-stairs my legs seemed as though their lower halves were made of lead. After this there were no new symptoms, only an intensifying of those already mentioned. The periods of unconsciousness became at once longer and more frequent, and during their absence intellection was more imperfect, although when thoroughly aroused I thought I reasoned and judged clearly. The oppressive feeling of impending death became more intense. It was horrible. Each paroxysm would seem to have been the longest I had suffered; as I came out of it a voice seemed constantly saying, ‘You are getting worse; your paroxysms are growing longer and deeper; they will overmaster you; you will die.’ A sense of personal antagonism between my will power, as affected by the drug, grew very strong. I felt as though my only chance was to struggle against these paroxysms—that I must constantly arouse myself by an effort of will; and that effort was made with infinite toil and pain. I felt as if some evil spirit had control of the whole of me, except the will power, and was in determined conflict with that, the last citadel of my being. I have never experienced anything like the fearful sense of almost hopeless anguish and utter weariness which was upon me. Once or twice during a paroxysm I had what might be called nightmare sensations; I felt myself mounting upward, expanding, dilating, dissolving into the wide confines of space, overwhelmed by a horrible, rending, unutterable despair. Then, with tremendous effort, I seemed to shake this off, and to start up with the shuddering thought, next time you will not be able to throw this off, and what then? Under the influence of an emetic I vomited freely, without nausea, and without much relief. About midnight, at the suggestion of the doctors, I went up-stairs to bed. My legs and feet seemed heavy, I could scarcely move them, and it was as much as I could do to walk with help. I have no recollection whatever of being undressed, but am told I went immediately to sleep. When I awoke, early in the morning, my mind was at first clear, but in a few minutes the paroxysms, similar to those of the evening, came on again, and recurred at more or less brief intervals until late in the afternoon. All of the day there was marked anæsthesia of the skin. At no time were there any aphrodisiac feelings produced. There was a marked increase of the urinary secretion. There were no after effects, such as nausea, headache, or constipation of the bowels.
“The sense of prolongation of time which I experienced was to me very remarkable, but is not uncommon in these cases. It is evidently due to the immense rapidity of the succession of ideas. The mind, without doubt, measures time by the duration of its own processes, and when an infinitude of ideas arise before it in the time usually occupied by a few, time becomes infinitely prolonged to the mind. It is a lifetime in the minute. A very common mental phenomenon, not yet mentioned, is a condition of double consciousness, a sense of having two existences, of being at the same time one’s self and somebody else.”
Pleasurable as may be the stage of excitement or intoxication, fascinating as may be the dreams that follow, the evil effect upon the body is rapid and decisive.
Wasting of the muscles, sallowness of the skin, hebetude of the mind, interference with coördination, failure of the appetite, convulsive seizures, loss of strength, and idiotic offspring, seem, from all accounts, to be the uniform result of the long continued use of this drug.
CHAPTER XIII.
CONCLUSIONS.
A careful study of the facts presented in the foregoing chapters teach us several lessons well worth considering, and suggest certain cautions and reforms that are greatly needed.
From the abundant evidence upon this point I think we must conclude that the abuse or habitual use of narcotics is steadily upon the increase, especially the subcutaneous use of morphine; that these drugs are, in the majority of instances, first taken to relieve pain, and not for simple gratification of a morbid appetite; and that the drug used and the manner of using it is in consonance with the prevalent medical practice of the time in which the habituè lives.