The difference between the condition of the victim in the primary, as contrasted with that in the secondary or advanced stages, consists in this: Of course, it is a self-evident proposition, from the description I have given of the effects of opium, that the longer a human being is subjected to the suffering it inflicts, the worse he will look, feel, and actually be. But to take the same man out of the advanced stages, and compare him with himself in the first stages, there will be found difference enough between the two living testimonies to the power of opium to interest the investigator, and repay him for the labor required to make the comparison. In the first stages, opium commits its ravages on the human system by expansion and explosion; in the after stages, it does its work by contraction and compression; the weary victim totters beneath a heavy load. In the first stages he has occasional periods of enjoyment; in the latter he has none; he is so benumbed by opium as to be incapable of enjoyment. Temporary manumission from positive pain or distress only brings out into stronger relief his miserable situation. He sees and feels that he is not happy; cannot be at his best; and yet his sensibilities are so impervious to all deep feeling, that it is impossible for him to give way to the luxury of weeping,--the solace of tears. His heart is as "dry" and as dead "as summer dust." The same numbness and deadness isolate him from the enjoyment of the society of his fellow-man. He has lost all capacity or capability to enjoy. He likewise has lost all interest in the things in which mankind generally take pleasure. He has lost all power to take interest in them. The world to him is a "sterile promontory," a "foul and pestilent congregation of vapors." "Man delights not him." In addition to the general deadness of the sensibilities, the buried-alive condition of the victim, he suffers daily misery and sometimes agony from the abnormal condition of the stomach and bowels produced by opium. The stomach is dry and hard,--dead as the rest of the physical man. The least variation in the dose deranges everything, and brings on a horrible indigestion. This, whether the variation be on the side of less or more; each holds in store its peculiar retribution for law violated. Too little may have some appetite (and may not), but no digestion. Too much may have a little appetite, but no digestion. In either case there may be no appetite at all. To subtract a certain quantity would be _certain_ to upset the stomach, both for appetite and digestion. To add a certain quantity, would be to so benumb the stomach as to prevent all appetite, relish, and digestion. In the one case--too little--it is a lack of strength in the stomach; in the other--too much--the organ is already satiated by opium, and desires no food.