bear the temporary strain imposed upon them by the condition of the stomach and other organs. But with opium the case is otherwise. Insanity, I think, would be the general result of an attempt immediately to relinquish the habit by those who have long indulged it. The most the opium-eater can do is to diminish his allowance as rapidly as is safe. For the same reason that no sensible physician would direct the confinement of a patient and the absolute disuse of opium with the certainty that mania would result, so it would be equally ill advised to recommend a diminution so rapid as necessarily to call out the most serious disorder and derangement of all the bodily functions, especially if these could be made more endurable by being spread over a longer period. In one respect the opium-eater has greatly the advantage over those addicted to other bad habits. Those who have used distilled or fermented drinks, tobacco, and sometimes coffee and tea in excess, experience for a time a strong and definite craving for the wonted indulgence. This is never the case with the opium-eater; he has no specific desire whatever for the drug. The only difficulty he has to encounter is the agony of pain--for no other word adequately expresses the suffering he endures--conjoined with a general desire for relief. Yet in the very _acme_ of his punishment he will be sensible of no craving for opium at all like the craving of the drunkard for spirits. As De Quincey justly represents it, the feeling is more that of a person under actual torture, aching for relief, though with no care from what source that relief comes. So far from there being any particular desire for opium, there ensues very speedily, I suspect, after the attempt to abandon it is begun, and long before the necessity for its use has ceased, and even while the suffering from its partial disuse is most unendurable, a feeling in reference to the drug itself not far removed from disgust. The only occasion that I have had of late years to make use of opium or any of its preparations, was within a twelvemonth after it had been laid aside. A morbid feeling had long troubled me with the suggestion that should a necessity ever arise for the medical use of opium, I might be precipitated back into the habit. I was not sorry, therefore, when the necessity for its use occurred, that I might test the correctness of my apprehension. To my surprise, not only was no desire for a second trial of its virtues awakened, but the very effort to swallow the pill was accompanied with a feeling akin to loathing. The final decision of the question, How long a time should be allowed for the final relinquishment of the drug? must, I imagine, be left to a wider experience than has yet been recorded. The general strength of the constitution, the force of the will, the degree of nervous sensibility, together with the external circumstances of one's life, have all much to do with its proper explication.