habit. The difficulty, early in life, of retaining food of any kind
upon the stomach was soon followed by vagrant shooting pains over the
body, which at a later day assumed a permanant chronic form.

After other remedies had failed, the eminent physician under whose
advice I was acting recommended opium. I have no doubt he acted both
wisely and professionally in the prescription he ordered, but where is
the patient who has learned the secret of substituting luxurious
enjoyment in place of acute pain by day and restless hours by night,
that can be trusted to take a correct measure of his own necessities?
The result was as might have been anticipated: opium after a few
months' use became indispensable. With the full consciousness that
such was the case, came the resolution to break off the habit This was
accomplished after an effort no more earnest than is within the power
of almost any one to make. A recurrence of suffering more than usually
severe led to a recourse to the same remedy, but in largely increased
quantities. After a year or two's use the habit was a second time
broken by another effort much more protracted and obstinate than the
first. Nights made weary and days uncomfortable by pain once more
suggested the same unhappy refuge, and after a struggle against the
supposed necessity, which I now regard as half-hearted and cowardly,
the habit was resumed, and owing to the peculiarly unfavorable state
of the weather at the time, the quantity of opium necessary to
alleviate pain and secure sleep was greater than ever. The habit of
relying upon large doses is easily established; and, once formed, the
daily quantity is not easily reduced. All persons who have long been
accustomed to Opium are aware that there is a _maximum_ beyond
which no increase in quantity does much in the further alleviation of
pain or in promoting increased pleasurable excitement. This maximum
in my own case was eighty grains, or two thousand drops of laudanum,