The immediate danger to themselves is sufficiently alarming, if only it were ever realized in time. The narcotist keeps chloroform or chloral always at hand, forgetful or ignorant that one sure effect of the first dose is to produce a semi-stupor more dangerous than actual somnolence. In that semi-stupor the patient is aware, or fancies that the dose has failed. The pain that has induced a lady to hold a chloroformed handkerchief under her nostrils returns while her will and her judgment are half paralysed. She takes the bottle from the table beside her bed, intending to pour an additional supply on the handkerchief. The unsteady hand perhaps spills a quantity on the sheet, perhaps sinks with the unstoppered bottle under her nostrils; and in a few moments she has inhaled enough utterly to stupefy if not to kill. The vapor, moreover, is inflammable; perhaps it catches the candle by her side; and she is burnt to death while powerless to move. The sleepless brain-worker also feels that his usual dose of chloral has failed to bring sleep; he is not aware how completely it has stupefied the brain, to which it has not given rest. His judgment is gone, so is his steadiness of hand; and, whether intentionally or not, at any rate unconsciously, so far as reasoning and judgment are concerned, he pours out a second and too often a fatal dose. Any one who knows how great is the stupefying power of these drugs, how often they produce a sort of moral coma without paralysing the lower functions of animal or even of mental life, would, one might suppose, at least take care to be in bed before the drug takes effect, and if possible to put it out of reach till next morning. But experience shows how seldom even this obvious and essential precaution is taken.