In my own case, knowing nothing of the peculiar secondary effects of opium upon the physical system, I paid the penalty of my ignorance in continual derangements and distress in my stomach and bowels. Not knowing when or how to take it to the best advantage, constantly threw me into spells of indigestion, loss of appetite, and diarrhoea; also constipation and distress in the epigastrium. I was taking morphia for the headache, and if the intermission "in this kind" were prolonged beyond a certain time, the result was diarrhoea, and a general confounding of the entire stomachic apparatus. I did not then observe myself so closely as I have learned to do since, or I should have noticed the conjunction of circumstances that caused this derangement. Had I taken the morphia at proper intervals, this would not have occurred; but I was not aware of that fact, and did not become acquainted with it until months after, when I consulted a physician, on the eve of making an attempt to renounce the habit. Allowing too long a period of time to elapse between doses, threw me into this disorder; additional distress and inconvenience were incurred by taking the drug at the wrong time in the day, and at an improper distance from meals. As to the dose, I have nothing to say. How much better or worse I may have felt, taking a different quantity as a dose, I cannot imagine. I can only speak of what I finally observed and learned after reploughed, resowed, and rereaped experience. Allowing too long a time to elapse between doses, occasioned loss of appetite, disorganized the stomach, and prevented digestion; and taking the drug at the wrong time in the day, and at an improper distance from a meal, constipated me, and gave me distress in the epigastrium. This distress in the epigastrium was terrible on the nervous system, and rendered the mind almost impotent and powerless for the time it lasted. Likewise, taking the medicine at wrong times, would sometimes cause my food to lodge in me whilst passing through my intestines. This was one of the most potent causes of misery with which it was my unfortunate lot to be afflicted. My food would frequently be arrested in the lower bowels, where it would seem determined to abide with me forever, cutting me like a sharp-cornered stone, rendering me almost wild with nervous distress, and almost entirely dethroning my mind for the time being. It was a perfect hell-rack, and sometimes lasted for days. I could do but little during these spells, and that little not well, having no command over my nervous system. They generally left me relaxed and exhausted. A prolonged series of attacks of this kind so impaired my mind, that it required considerable time thereafter to recover. These attacks came the nearest realizing the torments of hell upon earth, complete, unabrogated, or unabridged, of anything I ever suffered.