absence, however, of such instruction, these imperfect, and in some
cases fragmentary, records of the experience of opium-eaters are
given, chiefly in the language of the sufferers themselves, that the
opium-eating reader may compare case with case, and deduce from such
comparison the lesson of the entire practicability of his own release
from what has been the burden and the curse of his existence. The
entire object of the compilation will have been attained, if the
narratives given in these pages shall be found to serve the double
purpose of indicating to the beginner in opium-eating the hazardous
path he is treading, and of awakening in the confirmed victim of the
habit the hope that he may be released from the frightful thraldom
which has so long held him, infirm in body, imbecile in will,
despairing in the present, and full of direful foreboding for the
future.

In giving the subjoined narratives of the experience of opium-eaters,
the compiler has been sorely tempted to weave them into a more
coherent and connected story; but he has been restrained by the
conviction that the thousands of opium-eaters, whose relief has been
his main object in preparing the volume, will be more benefited by
allowing each sufferer to tell his own story than by any attempt on
his part to generalize the multifarious and often discordant phenomena
attendant upon the disuse of opium. As yet the medical profession are
by no means agreed as to the character or proper treatment of the
opium disease. While medical science remains in this state, it would
be impertinent in any but a professional person to attempt much more
than a statement of his own case, with such general advice as would
naturally occur to any intelligent sufferer. Very recently indeed,
some suggestions for the more successful treatment of the habit have
been discussed both by eminent medical men and by distinguished