The truth about opium

by William H. Brereton

I had some time ago the advantage of reading a very interesting and remarkable letter in the “Times” by Sir George Birdwood, to whom I have already referred; he has had more than fourteen years’ experience in India as a medical man, and has made the opium question a special study. I think his testimony is worth a great deal more than that of any layman, however learned or talented; the one has both theoretical and practical knowledge of his subject, the other at best is only a theorist. Believe me, the Roman poet knew human nature well when he said, “Trust the man who has experience of facts.” The paper, which is a learned and interesting one, is too long to read, but here is an extract from it:—

My readers can judge for themselves from the authorities I have indicated; but the opinion I have come to from them and my own experience is, that opium is used in Asia in a similar way to alcohol in Europe, and that, considering the natural craving and popular inclination for, and the ecclesiastical toleration of it and its general beneficial effects, and the absence of any resulting evil, there is just as much justification for the habitual use of opium in moderation as for the moderate use of alcohol, and indeed far more.

Sir Benjamin Brodie is always quoted as the most distinguished professional opponent of the dietetical use of opium; but what are his words (Psychological Enquiries, p. 248):—“The effect of opium when taken into the stomach is not to stimulate, but to soothe the nervous system. It may be otherwise in some instances, but these are rare exceptions to the general rule. The opium eater is in a passive state, satisfied with his own dreamy condition while under the influence of the drug. He is useless but not mischievous. It is quite otherwise with alcoholic liquors.” Opium smoking, which is the Chinese form of using the drug—for which the Indian Government is specially held responsible—is, to say the least in its favour, an infinitely milder indulgence. As already mentioned, I hold it to be absolutely harmless. I do not place it simply in the same category with even tobacco smoking, for tobacco smoking may, in itself, if carried into excess, be injurious, particularly to young people under twenty-five; but I mean that opium smoking in itself is as harmless as smoking willow-bark or inhaling the smoke of a peat-fire or vapour of boiling water.... I have not seen Surgeon-General Moore’s recent paper on opium in the Indian Medical Gazette, but I gather from a notice of it quoted from the Calcutta Englishman, in the Homeward Mail of the 14th of November last, that it supplies a most exhaustive and able vindication of the perfect morality of the revenue derived by the Indian Government from the manufacture and sale of opium to the Chinese. He quotes from Dr. Ayres, of Hong Kong: “No China resident believes in the terrible frequency of the dull, sodden-witted, debilitated opium smoker met with in print;” and from Consul Lay:—“In China the spendthrift, the man of lewd habits, the drunkard, and a large assortment of bad characters, slide into the opium smoker; hence the drug seems chargeable with all the vices of the country.” Mr. Gregory, Her Majesty’s Consul at Swatow, says Dr. Moore never saw a single case of opium intoxication, though living for months and travelling for hundreds of miles among opium smokers. Dr. Moore directly confirms my own statement of the Chinese having been great drunkards of alcohol before they took to smoking opium. I find also a remarkable collection of folk-lore (Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, by Herbert A. Giles), evidence in almost every chapter of the universal drinking habits of the Chinese before the introduction of opium among them, notwithstanding that the use of alcohol is opposed to the cardinal precepts of Buddhism. What Dr. Moore says of the freedom of opium smokers from bronchial thoracic diseases is deserving of the deepest consideration. I find that, on the other hand, the Chinese converts to Christianity suffer greatly from consumption. The missionaries will not allow them to smoke, and, as they also forbid their marrying while young, after the wise custom, founded on an experience of thousands of years of their country, they fall into those depraved, filthy habits, of which consumption is everywhere the inexorable witness and scourge. When spitting of blood comes on, the opium pipe is its sole alleviation.

Now Dr. Birdwood is not only well informed upon the opium question, but is certainly one of the ablest opponents of the Anti-Opium agitation who has yet appeared. His letters in the “Times” created quite a sensation, and so alarmed Mr. Storrs Turner that he left no means untried to neutralize their effects. At this point a bright idea occurred to him. Finding that there was a general consensus of opinion against him amongst English medical men and other competent authorities that the outcry against opium was groundless, he hit upon the brilliant expedient of discrediting them all, by the assertion that Englishmen are so prejudiced that they are not to be believed. This is what he says on the subject in his famous article in the Nineteenth Century having in a previous passage imagined a case in which China was the plaintiff and Great Britain the defendant:—

The baneful effects of the opium vice are established by universal experience. One may apply to it the theological maxim Quod semper quod ubique, quod ab omnibus. Two considerations will show that the opposition of a few dissentient voices does not detract from the general conclusion. Most of these are quite clear on the point that opium is bad for everybody but Chinese. They would be horrified at the suggestion that opium should be freely used in England and approve the efforts or supposed efforts of the Indian Government to keep it out of the way of the natives of India. On another point these dissentients are all alike; every one of them is prejudiced in favour of the defendant in the case before us. They are all Englishmen. No French or German medical man, no single Chinese authority has been quoted to testify to the innocence of opium. Some of these apologists are opium merchants, who aver that the drug by which they make their wealth is a boon and a blessing to China; or it is a gentleman employed in the India Office who considers opium smoking as safe as “twiddling one’s thumbs.”

Could the force of folly or fanaticism go further than that? All Englishmen are prejudiced. I wonder, did it ever occur to Mr. Storrs Turner that he, being an Englishman, might be a little prejudiced also—on the other side of the question. Yes; Dr. Ayres, Dr. Eatwell, Surgeon-General Moore, Dr. Birdwood, and a host of other eminent medical men standing in the front rank of their profession, Sir Rutherford Alcock, Mr. Colborne Baber, Mr. W. Donald Spence, and others are not to be believed—because they are Englishmen! Were they Germans or Frenchmen, they would, of course, be entitled to the fullest credence. Like the priest and prophet of Crete, Mr. Storrs Turner holds that all his countrymen are liars.[8] But, stay, do I not remember that gentleman’s holding a select conference of English medical men, about October 1882, when certain resolutions were drawn up condemnatory of opium? Surely, yes. The invitations were issued by the Earl of Shaftesbury. I should like to ask Mr. Storrs Turner were the medical and other gentlemen then present Englishmen or foreigners? If I do not greatly err they were all Englishmen. Does Mr. Storrs Turner consider those gentlemen worthy of credit? I rather think he does: so that Mr. Turner’s creed runs thus: “Englishmen are to be believed so long as they agree with me on the opium question. When they differ from me on that subject they are not to be believed at all.” Mr. Turner is fond of treating his readers to theological maxims. I will now give him a legal one which, I think, is applicable to his case. It runs thus, translated into plain English: “He is not to be heard who alleges things contrary to each other.” Of course, the reader has seen that Mr. Turner’s sneer at “the gentleman employed in the India Office,” is at Sir George Birdwood, whose pungent articles in the Times have inflicted such damage on his cause, and whose efforts in the interests of common sense and truth he would wish to suppress.

As Mr. Turner’s tastes are exotic, I will furnish him now with some foreign testimony that may perhaps astonish him. For many years previous to 1858, Don Sinibaldo de Mas had been the Envoy-Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the Court of Spain at Pekin. That nobleman had travelled much in China, India, Java, Borneo, and Malacca, having learned the Chinese language the better to enable him to utilize his travels in those places. In 1858 he published a book[9] in the French language on China and the Chinese, making special reference to the opium question, to which he has devoted one very interesting chapter exclusively. The book was brought out in Paris, and has never, that I am aware of, been translated into English. Now about the last person from whom one would expect to obtain testimony of the kind is a Spaniard. Yet so it is. This book of Don Sinibaldo de Mas is, indeed, one of the most powerful vindications of British policy in India and China that has yet been written. I hardly think even Mr. Storrs Turner can accuse this gentleman of partiality, or object to his testimony as being influenced by personal motives. This is part of what he says on the subject:—

I may say, in the first instance, that personally neither as a private individual nor as a public functionary have I ever been in the slightest degree interested in this (opium) trade, for be it noted that Spanish vessels have never imported into China a single chest of opium. I consequently approach this subject with complete impartiality. I have known the Chinese at Calcutta, Singapore, Penang, Malacca, Manila, and in many parts of their own country, where I acquired a sufficient knowlege of the Chinese language to enable me to converse with the natives and make myself fully acquainted with the opium question, which I believe I understand, and may be considered thoroughly unbiassed in my opinions.

Opium has been preached against and denounced as a veritable poison, and it has been looked upon as a crime in those who have made the drug an object of commerce or gain. A memorial embodying those views, signed by many missionaries and supported by the Earl of Chichester, was presented to Queen Victoria. A meeting was also held in London, composed of philanthropic gentlemen, presided over by the Earl of Shaftesbury, when a petition to the Queen embodying the same object was drawn up; this document I shall refer to more particularly later on. Lastly, some members of the House of Lords and Commons spoke against the sale of opium. On the other hand, Christian merchants established in China, many men of eminence, such as Sir J. F. Davis and others of the highest respectability, have maintained that the smoking of this drug has less deletorious effects than the use of fermented liquors. I will endeavour to explain this question in all good faith and impartiality. In the maritime towns of India, Malacca, Java, the Philippines, Borneo, and Sooloo the Chinese are at liberty to smoke opium where and when they please, and can buy it cheaper than they can in Canton or Shanghai, not to mention the inland towns: yet it is a well-known fact that in all these countries, notwithstanding their unwholesome climates, the opium-smoking Chinese are remarkably healthy and strong. These very opium smokers are employed as farm labourers, masons, and porters, enduring great fatigue and performing the most arduous labours; they have acquired such an excellent reputation as colonists that efforts have been made during the last few years to induce them to settle in Lima and Cuba. The percentage of deaths amongst these people does not exceed the usual rate, and I must confess that having known numbers of Chinese emigrants in the various countries I have mentioned, I have never heard of a single death or of any serious illness having been caused by opium smoking.

It was only on my first arrival in China that I was made aware of the dire effects this narcotic is said to produce, and that the vapour inhaled by opium smokers was designated a poison; I must add that in none of the different parts of China which I have visited has it come to my knowledge that death has resulted from opium smoking. Having asked several natives whom I thought worthy of credence whether they had ever heard of a death having occurred from the habit, they answered me that it might have happened to a very inordinate smoker, but only in the event of his being suddenly deprived of the indulgence. One Chinaman related how he had witnessed such a case. He had known an inveterate opium smoker who had become extremely poor, and was found insensible and almost lifeless; some good-natured person passing by puffed some fumes of opium into his mouth, which immediately seemed to revive him, and enabled him shortly to smoke a pipe himself, which most effectually recalled him to life. I admit that opium is in itself a poison, but let me ask what changes does not fire produce in the various substances which it consumes?