I think it is now clear, both from the testimony I have adduced, and from Mr. Turner’s own admission, that the poppy is not only indigenous to China, but that it has been cultivated there from time immemorial, and that opium is smoked generally throughout China, the only limit to its use being the means of procuring the drug.
LECTURE III.
In my last lecture I dealt with the fallacy that the poppy is not indigenous to China, but has recently been introduced there presumably by British agency, and that opium smoking in China was confined to a small percentage of the people, which had been steadily increasing since the introduction into China of Indian opium.
I now proceed to discuss fallacy number 3, which is, that “opium smoking is injurious to the system, more so than spirit drinking.” I think I shall be able to show most clearly that exactly the reverse is the case. With this it will be convenient to take fallacy number 5, which is a kindred one, namely, that “opium smoking and opium eating are equally hurtful.” This fallacy lies at the root of the opium controversy, for it alone has enabled the Anti-Opium agitators to give plausibility to their teaching and to obtain some hold, as they lately had, upon the public mind. There is, in truth, about as much difference in the two practices as there is between drinking, say, a pint of ardent spirits and bathing the surface of one’s body with the same stimulant. Before proceeding further, it may be stated that opium is admitted by physicians in all countries to be an invaluable medicine, for which there is no known substitute. Mr. Storrs Turner says that from the time of Hippocrates to the present day it has been the physician’s invaluable ally in his struggles against disease and death.
Pereira thus describes the drug:—
Opium is undoubtedly the most important and valuable remedy of the whole Materia Medica. For other medicines we have one or more substitutes, but for opium none,—at least in the large majority of cases in which its peculiar and beneficial influence is required. Its good effects are not, as is the case with some valuable medicines, remote and contingent, but they are immediate, direct, and obvious, and its operation is not attended with pain or discomfort. Furthermore it is applied, and with the greatest success, to the relief of maladies of everyday occurrence, some of which are attended with acute human suffering.
This is the description given of opium in Dr. Quain’s Dictionary of Medicine recently published:—
Opium and morphia naturally stand first and still hold their place as our most potent and reliable narcotics, all the more valuable because almost alone in their class they are also endowed with powerful anodyne action, in virtue of which they may relieve pain without causing sleep. Valuable as it is in all forms of insomnia, opium is especially indicated in typhus fever and other acute disorders, when delirium and prolonged wakefulness seem to endanger life. The principal drawback to opium is the digestive disturbance following its use, and the fact that, as toleration is very rapidly established, gradually increasing doses are needed to check the counteracting influence of habit.