But four ounces of the best extract (Hance & Griffith's) producing literally no effect of any kind on an entirely fresh subject, is a phenomenon that I must have needed eye-witness to imagine possible.] I may add that in the latter case, _bromide of potassium_ was administered with the happiest result--in fact as nearly approaching in its efficiency the character of a succedaneum as any remedy I ever used to alleviate the tortures of opium, while in the former no result attended its administration salutary or otherwise. The vast diversity of operation exhibited in different patients by the drug _scutellaria_ is still another illustration of the careful study of idiosyncrasies requisite for a successful treatment of the opium disease. But when the case comes into our hands at a desperate period there are many means of instant alleviation which may anticipate without interfering with future treatment based on study. Mr. Edgerton, though by no means a man of ruined constitution, has brought himself temporarily into a critical place by the fatigues and anxieties of harassing business, by exceptional overwork which kept him at his desk or in his shop until inordinately late hours; even, let me say, by going for entire nights without sleep and neglecting his regular meals day after day for a period of several weeks; performing and enduring all this by the support of extra doses of opium. Perhaps, finding the stimulus to which he has become accustomed too slow in its operation, he has violated his usual custom of abstinence from alcoholic drinks and reinforced his opium with more or less frequent potations of whisky. This is no fancy sketch, Our overtasked commercial men frequently go on what might with propriety be called "a business spree," in which for a month at a time, whether using stimulants or not, they plunge into as mad a vortex with as thorough a recklessness as those of the periodical inebriate; finding out in the long run that the fascinations of speculation, and the spring and fall trade, bring as dire destruction to soul and body as those of the bowl and the laudanum vial. During times of great financial pressure or under the screws of preparation for some great professional effort, the moderate opium-eater finds that he must inevitably increase his dose. When he adds liquor to it (and this addition to an old opium-eater is often as necessary as liquor alone would have been before he used opium at all) he is indeed burning his candle at both ends. Mr. Edgerton reached the commencement of his period of extra exertion with as sound a constitution--in as comfortable condition of general health--as is enjoyed by any man habituated to opium for four or five years; and such cases are frequently found among men who appear to enjoy life pretty well, attend to their business with as much regularity as ever, and show no trace of the ravages wrought by their insidious foe to any but the expert student.