“I am half choked with coughing,” stammered Grenits, “and I have a nasty sweetish taste in my mouth. I cannot describe it.”
This first draw had been a deep one; the madat-ball was entirely consumed; van Rheijn slipped another opium-ball into the pipe.
“Now, this time,” said he, “you must try to swallow the smoke; you have done so often enough when you have blown the smoke of a cigar from your nose.”
Poor Grenits made another attempt. This time he did actually inhale the fumes and succeeded in retaining them for some seconds, after which he allowed them slowly to curl out at his nostrils.
Dr. Murowski made a note in his pocket-book, pulse 70, respiration 25, temperature normal.
Being asked again what he felt, Grenits answered: “I feel nothing; but the sweet taste has gone and now it tastes rather bitter.”
After the third pipe, Theodoor complained that his head felt heavy and said he wanted to go to sleep. This drowsiness seemed to increase with the fourth and fifth pipes; but, as yet, Grenits was well able to resist it. He returned sensible answers to the questions put to him by his friends; but remarked that his faculties seemed to be clouded and that he had to reflect for some considerable time before he could grasp the meaning of a question, and that he could not readily frame an answer. He was able, however, to sit upright, and could even walk up and down the room without support.
Dr. Murowski watched him carefully and after the sixth pipe he found, that the drowsy feeling was still increasing, that the pulse was at 70 while the respiration had risen to 28.
The eighth pipe produced further drowsiness, but yet Theodoor was able to tell the time by the clock.
With the ninth pipe, his speech became thick and his utterance indistinct; and when the doctor pressed him very hard, he said that his tongue seemed as if it were increasing in volume.