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.