suffering usually entailed upon the victims of the prince of narcotics. If I could lie two or three hours longer (or rather later) in the morning (which would carry me far beyond the beginning of business hours in the A. M.), I would get up feeling a great deal fresher and better. Going to bed early does not contravene or anticipate the difficulty. It is compulsory upon one to go to bed early, as it is. The proposition, boiled down, is simply this: The effect of opium lasts a specific length of time, and that must be slept by, and passed, before full relaxation sets in, and the overload of opium passes out of the system. Were I master of my own time, I think I could regulate my hours so as to avoid _this_ misery of opium: at least so modify it that it would be much more tolerable than it now is in my own case. But let us pass on to something else. It was in the year A. D. 1867 that I was misled into the habit of using morphia, and I have continued its use ever since in greater or less degree: assuming that the essential principle or foundation of all nostrums invented to cure the baneful habit is opium in one of its various forms. My practice is now to take a dose of so many grains exact weight at ten o'clock A. M., and another at four and a half o'clock P. M. At the latter dose I need not necessarily be so precise in weight. Regularity is absolutely enforced. There is no getting along otherwise. It is essential to preserve any uniformity of feeling, to secure sleep and tolerable digestion. An habituate periodically becomes bilious under the best regulations; frequently so where large quantities are taken, and the system is kept clogged with the drug. By adhering to strict regularity in weight and time, I still derive some stimulation from the drug, and when the stomach is in good condition, and free from lodgments of food, I sometimes feel a momentary touch of pleasurable sensation from the morning dose. In the afternoon there is usually too much food in my stomach for the medicine to take strong hold; often I can scarcely perceive that I have taken a dose, though usually there is a dull feeling of stimulation. By eight o'clock P. M. I begin to get drowsy, and it is best for me to get a doze at that time. I generally take a couple of dozes during the course of the evening, going to bed at ten o'clock, or about that hour. To get sleep enough is a point of the utmost importance. It is obligatory upon one to watch himself closely in this respect. The opium must to a great extent be slept off, and the system thoroughly relaxed, before refreshing sleep can be obtained. Getting up at the usual hours, compels an opium eater to arise before his sleep appears to be more than half out. He feels awful for a time, gradually becoming less wretched. The matter of sleep is one of so great importance, and so prominent a feature in the life of an opium eater, that I have treated the subject specially and at length in the beginning of this chapter.