“How many years have you been in the habit of taking this narcotic?”
“At intervals, for a dozen years.”
“You have therefore become habituated to the use of it?”
“To a certain extent, yes.”
“But if you, after twelve years’ practice, are in the habit of taking only fifteen drops, does it not strike you that that quantity was somewhat of an overdose for a man who had never taken anything of the kind before?”
“It did not strike me as being so at the time. The prisoner is a strong and healthy man, and his headache was a very violent one.”
“But, in any case, the general effect would be to induce a sense of extreme drowsiness, which, in a little while, would result in a dull, heavy sleep—a sleep so heavy and so dull that the sense of violent pain would be deadened, and even lost for the time being?”
“Those are precisely the effects which might be expected.”
“How soon, after a dose has been taken, does the feeling of drowsiness come on?”
“In about a quarter of an hour.”