The Opium Habit

by Horace B. Day

With the single exception of Richard Baxter, no clergyman of eminence on record appears to have suffered so acutely or for so long a period from nervous disorders as this eloquent divine. So little, unfortunately, is known of the nature of his disorder, that it would be unjust to express any opinion as to the urgency of the temptation which drove him to the enormous consumption of opium in which he indulged. His biography by Olinthus Gregory sufficiently indicates the severity as well as the early manifestation of his painful disorder. "At about six years of age he was placed at a day-school about four miles from his father's residence. At first he walked to school in the morning and home again in the evening. But the severe pain in his back, from which he suffered so much through life, had even then begun to distress him; so that he was often obliged to lie down upon the road; and sometimes his brother and his other school-fellows carried him in turn.

"Sir James Macintosh described Mr. Hall, when in his twentieth year, as attracting notice by a most ingenuous and intelligent countenance, by the liveliness of his manners, and by such indications of mental activity as could not be misinterpreted. His appearance was that of health, yet not of robust health, and he suffered from paroxysms of pain, during which he would roll about on the carpet in the utmost agony; but no sooner had the pain subsided than he would resume his part in conversation with as much cheerfulness and vivacity as before he had been thus interrupted.

"At that period, though he was strong and active, he often suffered extremely from the pain to which I have before adverted, and which was his sad companion through life. On entering his room to commence our reading, I could at once tell whether or not his night had been refreshing; for if it had, I found him at the table, the books to be studied ready, and a vacant chair set for me. If his night had been restless, and the pain still continued, I found him lying on the sofa, or more frequently upon three chairs, on which he could obtain an easier position. At such seasons, scarcely ever did a complaint issue from his lips; but inviting me to take the sofa, our reading commenced. They, however, who knew Mr. Hall can conjecture how often, if he became interested, he would raise himself from the chairs, utter a few animated expressions, and then resume the favorite reclining posture. Sometimes, when he was suffering more than usual, he proposed a walk in the fields, where, with the appropriate book as our companion, we could pursue the subject. If he was the preceptor, as was commonly the case in these peripatetic lectures, he soon lost the sense of pain, and it was difficult to say whether the body or the mind were brought most upon the stretch in keeping up with him.

"During the early months of the year 1803, the pain in Mr. Hall's back increased both in intenseness and continuity, depriving him almost always of refreshing sleep, and depressing his spirits to an unusual degree.

"Often has he been known to sit close at his reading, or yet more intently engaged in abstract thought, for more than twelve hours in the day; so that when his friends have called upon him, in the hope of drawing him from his solitude, they have found him in such a state of nervous excitement as led them to unite their efforts in persuading him to take some mild narcotic and retire to rest. The painful result may be anticipated. This noble mind lost its equilibrium.

"Throughout the whole of Mr. Hall's residence at Leicester, he suffered much from his constitutional complaint; and neither his habit of smoking nor that of taking laudanum seemed effectually to alleviate his sufferings. It was truly surprising that this constant, severe pain, and the means adopted to mitigate it, did not in any measure diminish his mental energy.

"In 1812 he took from fifty to one hundred drops every night. Before 1826 the quantity had increased to one thousand drops.

"Mr. Hall commonly retired to rest a little before eleven o'clock; but after his first sleep, which lasted about two hours, he quitted his bed to obtain an easier position on the floor or upon three chairs, and would then employ himself in reading the book on which he had been engaged during the day. Sometimes, indeed often, the laudanum, large as the doses had become, did not sufficiently neutralize his pain to remove the necessity for again quitting his bed. For more than twenty years he had not been able to pass a whole night in bed. When this is borne in mind it is truly surprising that he wrote and published so much; nay, that he did not sink into dotage before he was fifty years of age.

"Early on the Sunday morning (Mr. Addington says) being requested to see him, I found him in a condition of extreme suffering and distress. The pain in his back had been uncommonly severe during the whole night, and compelled him to multiply at very short intervals the doses of his anodyne, until he had taken no less than 125 grains of solid opium, equal to more than 3000 drops, or nearly four ounces of laudanum!! This was the only instance in which I had ever seen him at all overcome by the soporific quality of the medicine; and it was even then hard to determine whether the effect was owing so much to the quantity administered as to the unusual circumstance of its not having proved, even for a short time, an effectual antagonist to the pain it was expected to relieve.

"The opium having failed to assuage his pain, he was compelled to remain in the horizontal posture; but while in this situation a violent attack in his chest took place, which in its turn rendered an upright position of the body no less indispensable. The struggle that ensued between these opposing and alike urgent demands became most appalling, and it was difficult to imagine that he could survive it, especially as from the extreme prostration of vital energy, the remedy by which the latter of these affections had often been mitigated— viz., bleeding—could not be resorted to. Powerful stimulants, such as brandy, opium, ether, and ammonia, were the only resources, and in about an hour from my arrival we had the satisfaction of finding him greatly relieved."