It has been imagined that the preparation of opium has an injurious effect upon those engaged therein; but Dr. Eatwell, of the Benares Agency, states that, “amongst the thousands of individuals, cultivators, and _employés_, with whom the factory is filled during the receiving and manufacturing seasons, no complaints are ever heard of any injurious effects resulting from the influence of the drug, whilst they all remain quite as free from general sickness as persons unconnected with the general establishment—in fact, if anything, more so. It occasionally happens that a casual visitor to the factory complains of giddiness or headache; but the European officers employed in the department, who pass the greater part of the day with the thermometer between 95° and 105° Fah. amongst tons of the drug, never experience any bad effects from it. The native purkhea sits usually from six A.M. to three P.M. daily, with his hand and arm immersed nearly the whole time in the drug, which he is constantly smelling, and yet he feels no inconvenience from it. He has informed me, that at the commencement of the season, he experiences usually a sensation of numbness in the fingers; but I believe this to be more the result of fatigue, consequent upon the incessant use of the arm and fingers, than of any effect of the opium. In the large caking-vats, men are employed to wade knee-deep through the drug for several hours during the morning, and they remain standing in it during the greater part of the rest of the day, serving out the opium by armsful, their bodies being naked, with the exception of a cloth about the loins. These men complain of a sensation of drowsiness towards the end of their daily labours, and declare that they are overpowered early in the evening by sleep, but they do not complain of the effect as being either unpleasant or injurious. “Infants, of a few months old, may be frequently seen lying on the opium-besmeared floor, under the vats, in which dangerous position they are left by their thoughtless mothers; but, strange to say, without any accident ever occurring. Here are abundant facts to show that the health of those employed in the opium-factory, and in the manipulation of the drug, is not exposed to any risk whatever; whilst the impunity with which the drug is handled by hundreds of individuals, for hours together, proves that it has no endemic action; for I am inclined to consider the soporific effect experienced by the vat-treaders as produced through the lungs, and not through the skin.” This may be considered, therefore, as setting the question entirely at rest, and demonstrating the fact that the factory labourers are not sufferers.