6i2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



recourse to a dangerous expedient : he mixes a sma^l quantity of cor- 

 rosive sublimate with the opium, the influence of which is thus for a 

 time renewed. Then these means also fail ; when the victim must 

 bear the miserable condition to which he is reduced, until probably, 

 sooner or later, he sinks into the grave. On the excitable tempera- 

 ment of the Malays and Javanese, a strong dose of opium causes a 

 state of frantic fury amounting almost to madness, and this often ends 

 in that homicidal mania which has been called " running amuck ; " in 

 other words, in the individual attacking with his crease or dagger 

 every one whom he meets, so that it becomes necessary to shoot him 

 down with as little compunction as we do a mad dog. In Java, opium 

 is not allowed to be sold except in an adulterated form, the risk of 

 these evil consequences being thus in some measure lessened. 



So far as the effects of opium on the system are concerned, it is al- 

 most entirely a matter of indifference in what way the drug is used. 

 Whether it be taken in the solid form of pills, in the liquid form of 

 laudanum, or inhaled from a pipe as heated vapor, it speedily exerts 

 its pernicious and almost irresistible influence over the mind ; so that 

 few possess the iron will needed to relinquish the habit when it has 

 once been fairly acquired. How completely even the most intellectual 

 and cultivated minds may become enslaved was well illustrated in the 

 cases of Coleridge and De Quincey, whose highly-colored descriptions 

 of their experiences are said to have been productive of much evil 

 among the educated classes of this country. These descriptions must 

 not, however, be regarded as safe criteria of the usual influence of 

 opium on the colder temperament of the North European. According 

 to Dr. Christisou, it seldom produces a more striking efiect on the 

 Anglo-Saxon constitution than the removal of torpor and sluggishness, 

 thus rendering the opium-eater a pleasant and conversable companion; 

 but these small advantages, in turn, are purchased by a period of sub- 

 sequent pain and depression, the misery of which it would be difticult 

 to exaggerate. 



Opium, besides acting as a narcotic, possesses a remarkable power 

 as a restorative. By apparently checking the natural waste of nervous 

 energy, it enables the system to support fatigue, beneath which it 

 must otherwise inevitably have sunk. For this reason it is much used 

 by the Halcarras, the palanquin-bearers and messengers of India, who 

 journey almost incredible distances, furnished with nothing more than 

 a bag of rice, a little opium, and a pot to draw water from the wells. 

 The Tartar comiers also use it to sustain them, when compelled to 

 travel night and day in crossing the arid deserts of Central Asia; and 

 in some paits of the East it is administered as a restorative even to 

 horses. 



It is difficult to come to any definite conclusion as to whether the 

 physical character of Eastern races who habitually use opium as a 

 narcotic has deteriorated in consequence. No doubt the general be- 



