Drugs that enslave : $b The opium, morphine, chloral and hashisch habitsKane, H. H. (Harry Hubbell)
Science
Drugs that enslave : $b The opium, morphine, chloral and hashisch habits
Kane, H. H. (Harry Hubbell)
Drug addiction
The only habituè that I have known was a woman, thirty-eight years of age,
who consumed, daily, nine grains of the English extract. She would roll
it up into a little lump, knead it for some time between the fingers, and
then placing it in the bowl of a common clay pipe, partly filled with
tobacco, light it, and inhale the smoke. This was done twice daily, about
four and a half grains being used at a time. Sometimes she would go a week
at a time—at least so she said—without using any; but I suspect that on
those days when she did not smoke it, she used it by the stomach.
She was of an intensely nervous temperament, formerly addicted to the
excessive use of alcoholic stimulants; of sallow complexion, dull eyes,
pupils always _widely_ dilated, pulse slow and irregular, occasionally
intermitting a beat; heart sounds feeble, body poorly nourished, skin dry,
bowels usually loose, appetite poor, and urine scanty and high colored,
but free from casts, albumen or sugar. She had been using the drug in this
way about eighteen months, and found it necessary to occasionally increase
her doses. She complained, especially in the morning, when waking from her
almost cataleptic state, of intense pain in the _left_ side of the head,
and along the course of the sciatic nerve of the same side.
She began to use the drug through curiosity, having read of its peculiar
effects, and being extremely desirous of finding something to supply the
place of the alcohol, to which she had become a slave.
When not under the influence of the drug her intellect was dull and
sluggish, and her temper, at times, bad and unreasoning. During the night,
when most completely under the influence of hemp, her dreams were highly
pleasurable; she seeming to live in a different world, a thought being
answered by its accomplishment, a wish by its fulfillment; distances were
traversed in a few seconds; feasts, marked by plenty and variety, the food
on dishes of gold, studded with diamonds and other precious stones, were
set before her. Everything was done on a scale of magnificence. At times
the dreams partook of a highly lascivious character. She assured me that
she seemed to be living a double life—the one the real, the other that
produced by the hemp. In the latter the incidents of one night’s dreams
seemed to follow as regularly, and the characters to be as real, as the
incidents and people of every day life.
There was one peculiarity: if she took a little more than her usual
allowance of the drug, she found her dreams of an entirely different
nature; not pleasant, but inexpressibly horrible, new faces and new scenes
taking the place of the usual ones, the thread of her dream romance being
suddenly snapped. The same thing occurred, though not so markedly, if she
took less than the usual amount.
Before commencing the use of this drug she was in fair health, stout, and
when not under the influence of liquor, bright and cheerful.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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