A Pinang surgeon says, “that the hospitals and poorhouses are chiefly filled with opium-smokers. In one that I had charge of, the inmates averaged sixty daily, five-sixths of whom were smokers of chandu. The effects of this habit on the human constitution are conspicuously displayed by stupor, forgetfulness, general deterioration of all the mental faculties, emaciation, debility, sallow complexion, lividness of lips and eyelids, langour and lack lustre of eye; appetite either destroyed or depraved. In the morning these creatures have a most wretched appearance, evincing no symptoms of being refreshed or invigorated by sleep, however profound. There is a remarkable dryness or burning in the throat, which urges them to repeat the opium-smoking. If the dose be not taken at the usual time, there is great prostration, vertigo, torpor, and discharge of water from the eyes. If the privation be complete, a still more formidable train of phenomena takes place—coldness is felt all over the body, with aching pains in all parts, the most horrid feelings of wretchedness comes on, and if the poison be withheld, death terminates the victim’s sufferings. The opium-smoker may be known by his inflamed eyes and haggard countenance, by his lank and shrivelled limbs, tottering gait, sallow visage, feeble voice, and the death boding glance of his eye. He seems the most forlorn creature that treads the earth.”
The Abbé Huc writes, “nothing can stop a smoker who has made much progress in this habit, incapable of attending to any kind of business, insensible to every want, the most hideous poverty; and the sight of a family plunged into despair and misery, cannot rouse him to the smallest exertion, so complete is the disgusting apathy to which he is sunk.”
The evidence of Ho King Shan is, that “it impedes the regular performance of business; those in places of trust who smoke fail to attend personally even to their most important offices. Merchants who smoke fail to keep their appointments, and all their concerns fall behind hand. For the wasting of time and the destruction of business, the pipe is unrivalled.”
Oppenheim declares “that when the baneful habit has become confirmed, it is almost impossible to break it off. His torments, when deprived of the stimulant, are as dreadful as his bliss is complete when he has taken it. Night brings the torments of hell, day the bliss of paradise; and after long indulgence, he becomes subject to nervous pains, to which opium itself brings no relief. He seldom attains the age of forty, if he has begun the practice early.”
Also Dr. Madden:——“The debility, both moral and physical, attendant on the excitement produced by opium is terrible; the appetite is soon destroyed, every fibre in the body trembles, the nerves of the neck become affected, and the muscles get rigid. Several of these I have seen in this place at various times, who had wry necks and contracted fingers, but still they cannot abandon the custom; they are miserable until the hour arrives for taking their daily dose; and when its delightful influence begins, they are all fire and animation.”
A native literati of Hong-Kong affirms, “that from the robust who smoke, flesh is gradually consumed and worn away, and their skin hangs down like bags; the faces of the weak who smoke are cadaverous and black, and their bones naked as billets of wood.”
Also Dr. Oxley of Singapore:——“The inordinate use of the drug most decidedly does bring on early decrepitude, destructive of certain powers connected with the increase of the species, and a morbid state of all the secretions. But I have seen a man who had used the drug for fifty years in moderation without evil effects, and one I recollect in Malacca who had so used it was upwards of eighty. Several in the habit of smoking assured me, that in moderation, it neither impaired the functions nor shortened life, at the same time they fully admitted the deleterious effects of too much.”
Dr. Little visited on one occasion an opium shop, and found there two women smoking the drug—one had been a smoker for ten years. “In the morning when she awakes she says, ‘I feel as one dead. I cannot do anything until the pipe is consumed. My eyelids are glazed so that they cannot be opened, my nose discharges profusely. I feel a tightness in the chest, with sense of suffocation. My bones are sore, my head aches and is giddy, and I loathe the very sight of food.’ Within an hour I could produce a thousand of those creatures; and if I stood at the door of an opium shop, and watched those that entered, out of the hundred would be found at least seventy-five or eighty whose appearance would not require the confession that their health was destroyed, and their mind weakened, since the day that they were cursed with the first taste of an opium-pipe. To finish this subject let me record my opinion, the result of extensive investigation. That the habitual use of opium not only renders the life of the man miserable, but is a powerful means of shortening that life.”
To the last conclusion there are many objectors; and this subject has been canvassed as much as any in connection with the habit. Some years ago a trial took place in consequence of the death of the Earl of Mar, who was an opiophagi, and the insurance society on this ground objected to pay the money to his representatives. Dr. Christison, after detailing the facts, adds, “they would certainly tend on the whole rather to show that the practice of eating opium is not so injurious, and an opium-eater’s life not so uninsurable, as is commonly thought.” The result of the above-named trial was that the money had to be paid.
Before passing from this Plutonian region, the evidence of a good authority may be taken to show how apt prejudice is to impute even worse effects to the “subtle drug” than circumstances will warrant. An opium den is visited; the members of this convivial society are good-humoured and communicative. “One was a chair-cooly, a second was a petty tradesman, a third was a runner in a mandarin’s yanum; they were all of that class of urban population which is just above the lowest. They were, however, neither emaciated nor infirm. The chair-cooly was a sturdy fellow, well capable of taking his share in the porterage of a sixteen-stone mandarin; the runner seemed well able to run, and the tradesman, who said he was thirty-eight years old, was remembered by all of us to be a singularly young-looking man of his age. He had smoked opium for seven years. As we passed from the opium-dens, we went into a Chinese tea-garden—a dirty paved court, with some small trees and flowers in flower-pots—and a very emaciated and yawning proprietor presented himself. ‘The man has destroyed himself by opium-smoking,’ said an English clergyman who accompanied us. The man being questioned, declared that he had never smoked an opium-pipe in his life,—a bad shot, at which no one was more amused than the reverend gentleman who had fired it.