The interest excited by the two papers bearing this title, in our
numbers for September and October 1821, will have kept our promise
of a Third Part fresh in the remembrance of our readers. That we
are still unable to fulfil our engagement in its original meaning
will, we, are sure, be matter of regret to them as to ourselves,
especially when they have perused the following affecting narrative.
It was composed for the purpose of being appended to an edition of
the Confessions in a separate volume, which is already before the
public, and we have reprinted it entire, that our subscribers may be
in possession of the whole of this extraordinary history.
The proprietors of this little work having determined on reprinting
it, some explanation seems called for, to account for the non-
appearance of a third part promised in the London Magazine of
December last; and the more so because the proprietors, under whose
guarantee that promise was issued, might otherwise be implicated in
the blame--little or much--attached to its non-fulfilment. This
blame, in mere justice, the author takes wholly upon himself. What
may be the exact amount of the guilt which he thus appropriates is a
very dark question to his own judgment, and not much illuminated by
any of the masters in casuistry whom he has consulted on the
occasion. On the one hand it seems generally agreed that a promise
is binding in the inverse ratio of the numbers to whom it is made;
for which reason it is that we see many persons break promises
without scruple that are made to a whole nation, who keep their
faith religiously in all private engagements, breaches of promise
towards the stronger party being committed at a man's own peril; on
the other hand, the only parties interested in the promises of an
author are his readers, and these it is a point of modesty in any
author to believe as few as possible--or perhaps only one, in which
case any promise imposes a sanctity of moral obligation which it is
shocking to think of. Casuistry dismissed, however, the author
throws himself on the indulgent consideration of all who may
conceive themselves aggrieved by his delay, in the following account
of his own condition from the end of last year, when the engagement
was made, up nearly to the present time. For any purpose of self-
excuse it might be sufficient to say that intolerable bodily
suffering had totally disabled him for almost any exertion of mind,
more especially for such as demands and presupposes a pleasurable
and genial state of feeling; but, as a case that may by possibility
contribute a trifle to the medical history of opium, in a further
stage of its action than can often have been brought under the
notice of professional men, he has judged that it might be
acceptable to some readers to have it described more at length.
Fiat experimentum in corpore vili is a just rule where there is any
reasonable presumption of benefit to arise on a large scale. What
the benefit may be will admit of a doubt, but there can be none as
to the value of the body; for a more worthless body than his own the
author is free to confess cannot be. It is his pride to believe
that it is the very ideal of a base, crazy, despicable human system,
that hardly ever could have been meant to be seaworthy for two days
under the ordinary storms and wear and tear of life; and indeed, if
that were the creditable way of disposing of human bodies, he must
own that he should almost be ashamed to bequeath his wretched
structure to any respectable dog. But now to the case, which, for
the sake of avoiding the constant recurrence of a cumbersome
periphrasis, the author will take the liberty of giving in the first
person.
Those who have read the Confessions will have closed them with the
impression that I had wholly renounced the use of opium. This
impression I meant to convey, and that for two reasons: first,
because the very act of deliberately recording such a state of
suffering necessarily presumes in the recorder a power of surveying
his own case as a cool spectator, and a degree of spirits for
adequately describing it which it would be inconsistent to suppose
in any person speaking from the station of an actual sufferer;
secondly, because I, who had descended from so large a quantity as
8,000 drops to so small a one (comparatively speaking) as a quantity
ranging between 300 and 160 drops, might well suppose that the
victory was in effect achieved. In suffering my readers, therefore,
to think of me as of a reformed opium-eater, I left no impression
but what I shared myself; and, as may be seen, even this impression
was left to be collected from the general tone of the conclusion,
and not from any specific words, which are in no instance at
variance with the literal truth. In no long time after that paper
was written I became sensible that the effort which remained would
cost me far more energy than I had anticipated, and the necessity
for making it was more apparent every month. In particular I became
aware of an increasing callousness or defect of sensibility in the
stomach, and this I imagined might imply a scirrhous state of that
organ, either formed or forming. An eminent physician, to whose
kindness I was at that time deeply indebted, informed me that such a
termination of my case was not impossible, though likely to be
forestalled by a different termination in the event of my continuing
the use of opium. Opium therefore I resolved wholly to abjure as
soon as I should find myself at liberty to bend my undivided
attention and energy to this purpose. It was not, however, until
the 24th of June last that any tolerable concurrence of facilities
for such an attempt arrived. On that day I began my experiment,
having previously settled in my own mind that I would not flinch,
but would "stand up to the scratch" under any possible "punishment."
I must premise that about 170 or 180 drops had been my ordinary
allowance for many months; occasionally I had run up as high as 500,
and once nearly to 700; in repeated preludes to my final experiment
I had also gone as low as 100 drops; but had found it impossible to
stand it beyond the fourth day--which, by the way, I have always
found more difficult to get over than any of the preceding three. I
went off under easy sail--130 drops a day for three days; on the
fourth I plunged at once to 80. The misery which I now suffered
"took the conceit" out of me at once, and for about a month I
continued off and on about this mark; then I sunk to 60, and the
next day to--none at all. This was the first day for nearly ten
years that I had existed without opium. I persevered in my
abstinence for ninety hours; i.e., upwards of half a week. Then I
took--ask me not how much; say, ye severest, what would ye have
done? Then I abstained again--then took about 25 drops then
abstained; and so on.
Meantime the symptoms which attended my case for the first six weeks
of my experiment were these: enormous irritability and excitement
of the whole system; the stomach in particular restored to a full
feeling of vitality and sensibility, but often in great pain;
unceasing restlessness night and day; sleep--I scarcely knew what it
was; three hours out of the twenty-four was the utmost I had, and
that so agitated and shallow that I heard every sound that was near
me. Lower jaw constantly swelling, mouth ulcerated, and many other
distressing symptoms that would be tedious to repeat; amongst which,
however, I must mention one, because it had never failed to
accompany any attempt to renounce opium--viz., violent sternutation.
This now became exceedingly troublesome, sometimes lasting for two
hours at once, and recurring at least twice or three times a day. I
was not much surprised at this on recollecting what I had somewhere
heard or read, that the membrane which lines the nostrils is a
prolongation of that which lines the stomach; whence, I believe, are
explained the inflammatory appearances about the nostrils of dram
drinkers. The sudden restoration of its original sensibility to the
stomach expressed itself, I suppose, in this way. It is remarkable
also that during the whole period of years through which I had taken
opium I had never once caught cold (as the phrase is), nor even the
slightest cough. But now a violent cold attacked me, and a cough
soon after. In an unfinished fragment of a letter begun about this
time to--I find these words: "You ask me to write the--Do you know
Beaumont and Fletcher's play of "Thierry and Theodore"? There you
will see my case as to sleep; nor is it much of an exaggeration in
other features. I protest to you that I have a greater influx of
thoughts in one hour at present than in a whole year under the reign
of opium. It seems as though all the thoughts which had been frozen
up for a decade of years by opium had now, according to the old
fable, been thawed at once--such a multitude stream in upon me from
all quarters. Yet such is my impatience and hideous irritability
that for one which I detain and write down fifty escape me: in
spite of my weariness from suffering and want of sleep, I cannot
stand still or sit for two minutes together. 'I nunc, et versus
tecum meditare canoros.'"
At this stage of my experiment I sent to a neighbouring surgeon,
requesting that he would come over to see me. In the evening he
came; and after briefly stating the case to him, I asked this
question; Whether he did not think that the opium might have acted
as a stimulus to the digestive organs, and that the present state of
suffering in the stomach, which manifestly was the cause of the
inability to sleep, might arise from indigestion? His answer was;
No; on the contrary, he thought that the suffering was caused by
digestion itself, which should naturally go on below the
consciousness, but which from the unnatural state of the stomach,
vitiated by so long a use of opium, was become distinctly
perceptible. This opinion was plausible; and the unintermitting
nature of the suffering disposes me to think that it was true, for
if it had been any mere IRREGULAR affection of the stomach, it
should naturally have intermitted occasionally, and constantly
fluctuated as to degree. The intention of nature, as manifested in
the healthy state, obviously is to withdraw from our notice all the
vital motions, such as the circulation of the blood, the expansion
and contraction of the lungs, the peristaltic action of the stomach,
&c., and opium, it seems, is able in this, as in other instances, to
counteract her purposes. By the advice of the surgeon I tried
BITTERS. For a short time these greatly mitigated the feelings
under which I laboured, but about the forty-second day of the
experiment the symptoms already noticed began to retire, and new
ones to arise of a different and far more tormenting class; under
these, but with a few intervals of remission, I have since continued
to suffer. But I dismiss them undescribed for two reasons: first,
because the mind revolts from retracing circumstantially any
sufferings from which it is removed by too short or by no interval.
To do this with minuteness enough to make the review of any use
would be indeed infandum renovare dolorem, and possibly without a
sufficient motive; for secondly, I doubt whether this latter state
be anyway referable to opium--positively considered, or even
negatively; that is, whether it is to be numbered amongst the last
evils from the direct action of opium, or even amongst the earliest
evils consequent upon a WANT of opium in a system long deranged by
its use. Certainly one part of the symptoms might be accounted for
from the time of year (August), for though the summer was not a hot
one, yet in any case the sum of all the heat FUNDED (if one may say
so) during the previous months, added to the existing heat of that
month, naturally renders August in its better half the hottest part
of the year; and it so happened that--the excessive perspiration
which even at Christmas attends any great reduction in the daily
quantum of opium--and which in July was so violent as to oblige me
to use a bath five or six times a day--had about the setting-in of
the hottest season wholly retired, on which account any bad effect
of the heat might be the more unmitigated. Another symptom--viz.,
what in my ignorance I call internal rheumatism (sometimes affecting
the shoulders, &c., but more often appearing to be seated in the
stomach)--seemed again less probably attributable to the opium, or
the want of opium, than to the dampness of the house {21} which I
inhabit, which had about this time attained its maximum, July having
been, as usual, a month of incessant rain in our most rainy part of
England.
Under these reasons for doubting whether opium had any connexion
with the latter stage of my bodily wretchedness--except, indeed, as
an occasional cause, as having left the body weaker and more crazy,
and thus predisposed to any mal-influence whatever--I willingly
spare my reader all description of it; let it perish to him, and
would that I could as easily say let it perish to my own
remembrances, that any future hours of tranquillity may not be
disturbed by too vivid an ideal of possible human misery!
So much for the sequel of my experiment. As to the former stage, in
which probably lies the experiment and its application to other
cases, I must request my reader not to forget the reasons for which
I have recorded it. These were two: First, a belief that I might
add some trifle to the history of opium as a medical agent. In this
I am aware that I have not at all fulfilled my own intentions, in
consequence of the torpor of mind, pain of body, and extreme disgust
to the subject which besieged me whilst writing that part of my
paper; which part being immediately sent off to the press (distant
about five degrees of latitude), cannot be corrected or improved.
But from this account, rambling as it may be, it is evident that
thus much of benefit may arise to the persons most interested in
such a history of opium, viz., to opium-eaters in general, that it
establishes, for their consolation and encouragement, the fact that
opium may be renounced, and without greater sufferings than an
ordinary resolution may support, and by a pretty rapid course {22}
of descent.
To communicate this result of my experiment was my foremost purpose.
Secondly, as a purpose collateral to this, I wished to explain how
it had become impossible for me to compose a Third Part in time to
accompany this republication; for during the time of this experiment
the proof-sheets of this reprint were sent to me from London, and
such was my inability to expand or to improve them, that I could not
even bear to read them over with attention enough to notice the
press errors or to correct any verbal inaccuracies. These were my
reasons for troubling my reader with any record, long or short, of
experiments relating to so truly base a subject as my own body; and
I am earnest with the reader that he will not forget them, or so far
misapprehend me as to believe it possible that I would condescend to
so rascally a subject for its own sake, or indeed for any less
object than that of general benefit to others. Such an animal as
the self-observing valetudinarian I know there is; I have met him
myself occasionally, and I know that he is the worst imaginable
HEAUTONTIMOROUMENOS; aggravating and sustaining, by calling into
distinct consciousness, every symptom that would else perhaps, under
a different direction given to the thoughts, become evanescent. But
as to myself, so profound is my contempt for this undignified and
selfish habit, that I could as little condescend to it as I could to
spend my time in watching a poor servant girl, to whom at this
moment I hear some lad or other making love at the back of my house.
Is it for a Transcendental Philosopher to feel any curiosity on such
an occasion? Or can I, whose life is worth only eight and a half
years' purchase, be supposed to have leisure for such trivial
employments? However, to put this out of question, I shall say one
thing, which will perhaps shock some readers, but I am sure it ought
not to do so, considering the motives on which I say it. No man, I
suppose, employs much of his time on the phenomena of his own body
without some regard for it; whereas the reader sees that, so far
from looking upon mine with any complacency or regard, I hate it,
and make it the object of my bitter ridicule and contempt; and I
should not be displeased to know that the last indignities which the
law inflicts upon the bodies of the worst malefactors might
hereafter fall upon it. And, in testification of my sincerity in
saying this, I shall make the following offer. Like other men, I
have particular fancies about the place of my burial; having lived
chiefly in a mountainous region, I rather cleave to the conceit,
that a grave in a green churchyard amongst the ancient and solitary
hills will be a sublimer and more tranquil place of repose for a
philosopher than any in the hideous Golgothas of London. Yet if the
gentlemen of Surgeons' Hall think that any benefit can redound to
their science from inspecting the appearances in the body of an
opium-eater, let them speak but a word, and I will take care that
mine shall be legally secured to them--i.e., as soon as I have done
with it myself. Let them not hesitate to express their wishes upon
any scruples of false delicacy and consideration for my feelings; I
assure them they will do me too much honour by "demonstrating" on
such a crazy body as mine, and it will give me pleasure to
anticipate this posthumous revenge and insult inflicted upon that
which has caused me so much suffering in this life. Such bequests
are not common; reversionary benefits contingent upon the death of
the testator are indeed dangerous to announce in many cases: of
this we have a remarkable instance in the habits of a Roman prince,
who used, upon any notification made to him by rich persons that
they had left him a handsome estate in their wills, to express his
entire satisfaction at such arrangements and his gracious acceptance
of those loyal legacies; but then, if the testators neglected to
give him immediate possession of the property, if they traitorously
"persisted in living" (si vivere perseverarent, as Suetonius
expresses it), he was highly provoked, and took his measures
accordingly. In those times, and from one of the worst of the
Caesars, we might expect such conduct; but I am sure that from
English surgeons at this day I need look for no expressions of
impatience, or of any other feelings but such as are answerable to
that pure love of science and all its interests which induces me to
make such an offer.
Sept 30, 1822