Mithridates, king of Pontus, affords an instance of the effects of habit in enabling the body to withstand poisons; and on the same principle, we find that physicians and nurses who are much exposed to infection, are less liable to take it than those persons whose frames are not similarly fortified. Opium resembles wine, spirit, and ales, in affecting the brain and disposing to apoplexy. Taken in an overdose, it is fatal in from six to twenty-four hours, according to the quantity swallowed, and the constitution, habits, &c., of the person submitted to its operation. The following are the principal symptoms of poisoning from opium. Giddiness succeeded by stupor; insensibility to light, while the eyes are closed, and the pupil immoveable, and sometimes dilated. The pulse is generally small and feeble, but, occasionally, slow and full, as in common apoplexy. The breathing at first is scarcely perceptible, but is apt to become stertorous. Foam sometimes issues from the mouth: in other cases there is vomiting. The countenance is cadaverous and pale or livid. A narcotic odour is often perceptible in the breath. The skin is cold, and the body exceedingly relaxed; now and then it is convulsed. By being struck, shaken, or excited any way, the person sometimes recovers for a short period from his stupor, and stares wildly around him, but only to relapse into lethargy. At last death ensues, but shortly before this event, a deceitful show of animation occasionally makes its appearance, and may impose upon superficial observers. I extract the following interesting case of opium-eating from a London paper:— “An inquest was held at Walpole lately, on the body of Rebecca Eason, aged five years, who had been diseased from her birth, was unable to walk or articulate, and from her size did not appear to be more than _five weeks_ old. The mother had for many years been in the habit of taking opium in large quantities, (nearly a quarter of an ounce a-day;[16]) and, it is supposed, had entailed a disease on her child which caused its death; it was reduced to a mere skeleton, and had been in that state from birth. Verdict; ‘Died by the visitation of God; but from the great quantity of opium taken by the mother during her pregnancy of the said child, and of suckling it, she had greatly injured its health.’ It appeared that the mother of the deceased had had five children; that she began to take opium after the birth and weaning of her first child, which was and is remarkably healthy; and that the other children have all lingered and died in the same emaciated state as the child who was the subject of this investigation. The mother is under thirty: she was severely censured by the coroner for indulging in so pernicious a practice.”