OPIUM AND OTHER NARCOTICS.
Opium.—Opium is the juice obtained from the seed-vessels of the white poppy before they are ripe; this is dried, and smoked in a pipe or chewed. It makes a person feel very pleasant and happy for a little while, then so horribly wretched that he takes more of the poison to forget his misery. So he keeps on until mind and body are a complete wreck. Now and then an opium slave gets free from the dreadful habit which has mastered him, but usually the slavery ends only in death.
Laudanum and Morphine.—These soothe pain and cause sleep; but beware of them; they are made from opium, and like it, though more slowly, hurt mind and body.
Beware also of chloral hydrate and chloroform, which physicians give to ease suffering and produce sleep. Endure pain rather than form the habit of using these narcotics.
Hashish, etc.—This is prepared from the hemp plant growing in hot countries, and is a terribly exciting poison.
The areca nut, the seed from a kind of palm, pear-shaped, and resembling a nutmeg, is mixed with quick-lime and wrapped in a betel-leaf, which grows on a vine belonging to the pepper family. This mixture reddens the saliva and lips, and blackens the teeth. It is chewed by millions of people in India.
The leaves of the coca, also of the thorn apple, are smoked or chewed by the South American Indian.
All these poisons mean the same thing,—