In the same way a man will for a time endure even frightful suffering in relinquishing a pernicious habit, while he may fail to hold up his determination against the assaults of the apparently never-ending irritation, discomfort, pain, and sleeplessness which may be counted on as being, sometimes at least, among the remoter consequences of the struggle in which he has engaged. I wish it, however, distinctly understood that I do not suppose that the experience of others whose use of opium had been similar to my own, would necessarily correspond to mine in all or even in many respects. Opium is the Proteus of medicine, and science has not yet succeeded in tearing away the many masks it wears, nor in tracing the marvellously diversified aspects it is capable of assuming. Among many cases of the relinquishment of opium with which I have been made acquainted, nothing is more perplexing than the difference of the specific consequences, as they are exhibited in persons of different temperaments and habits. For such differences I do not pretend to account. That is the business of the thoroughly educated physician, and no unprofessional man, however wide his personal experience, has the right to dogmatize or even to express with much confidence settled opinions upon the subject. My object will be fully attained if I succeed in giving a just and truthful impression of the more marked final consequences of the hasty disuse of opium in this single case, leaving it to medical men to explain the complicated relations of an opium-saturated constitution to the free and healthy functions of life.
In my own case, the most marked among the later consequences of the disease of opium, some of which remain to the present time and seem to be permanently engrafted upon the constitution, have been these:
1. Pressure upon the muscles of the limbs and in the extremities, sometimes as of electricity apparently accumulated there under a strong mechanical force.
2. A disordered condition of the liver, exhibiting itself in the variety of uncomfortable modes in which that organ, when acting irregularly, is accustomed to assert its grievances.
3. A sensitive condition of the stomach, rejecting many kinds of food which are regarded by medical men as simple and easy of digestion.
4. Acute shooting pains, confined to no one part of the body.
5. An unnatural sensitiveness to cold.
6. Frequent cold perspiration in parts of the body.
7. A tendency to impatience and irritability of temper, with paroxysms of excitement wholly foreign to the natural disposition.
8. Deficiency and irregularity of sleep.