The writer is represented as being about fifty years of age, temperate in his general habits, and though not possessed of great vigor of constitution, as having been through life a hard-working man. His use of morphine began in the year 1861, under a medical prescription for the relief of general debility; but without any knowledge on his part of the character of the remedy he was using. After six months habituation, the attempt to relinquish it proved a failure. For the first two years, morphine appeared to benefit him. At the expiration of this time his daily allowance had become three grains, which quantity was rarely exceeded during the four subsequent years of his bondage. After narrating the mental and physical suffering he underwent in these years, he says: April 17, 1867, found me a poor, wasted, miserable, six years' morphine-eater; health all gone; unable to do any sort of business; desiring nothing but death to close my sufferings. Then I made up my mind to stop the use of morphine all at once. I had previously attempted to break off by degrees, but I was beaten at that game every time. It is utterly impossible to taper off by less and less, unless some one is over the patient watching every motion. I say it understandingly--the will of no man is strong enough to handle the poison for himself. He will make a virtue out of necessity, and for this time will over-take. So I resolved to quit at once and forever. I arranged my business as far as I could, under the idea that I should die in the attempt. The first forty-eight hours I slept most of the time, waking somewhat often, however, and then dropping asleep, while a sort of nervous twitching would come and go. But the next day found me wide awake. And--shall I tell you?--there was no more sleep for me until sixty-five days had passed. No, not one single moment for sixty-five days and nights. I was fully awake--never slept one moment! The second day my suffering was intense. Every nerve seemed to be on a rampage. Every faculty, mental and physical, appeared to be striving to see how much suffering I could stand. The third day my bowels began to empty, and a river of old fœtid matter ran away. It seemed that I was passing off in corruption. This continued for nearly four long, suffering weeks. I never checked it, but let Nature take her course. During the first four weeks of the fight there was extreme pain in every part of my body. It seemed to me that I should burn up. This worse than death sensation never left me a single hour for the first thirty-five days. It seemed at times as though my bones would burst open: a sort of nerve fire seemed to be shut up in them which must be let out. I was able to walk out, and if necessary could walk a mile or more.