CHLORAL AND OTHER NARCOTICS. 501 



closely this confession runs, even from the pen of a philosopher, to sim- 

 ilar confessions made by many who are not philosophers, respecting 

 another purely chemical intoxicant which is more generally known 

 than Sir Humphry's gas, I need not stay to explain. 



An experience, closely allied to the above, occurred to a scientific 

 friend of mine in relation to another intoxicant namely, chloroform. 

 This gentleman, commencing like Sir Humphry with the inhalation of 

 chloroform for purposes of experiment, at last began daily to inhale a cer- 

 tain measured quantity. In a few days he increased the quantity, and 

 at last discovered, from the intervals of time which elapsed after he 

 commenced each inhalation, that he must have gone off into deep sleep 

 and so have forgotten to note the passage of time. At first the sense of 

 desire to repeat the inhalation alarmed him greatly, but soon the desire 

 overcame all sense of fear, and at last he became a complete devotee 

 to the practice. A break-down in his health led him to communicate 

 his position to his friends, and by the earnest advice and warning of 

 one of them he did at last resolve to abstain altogether. It was a very 

 difficult fight, the odor of the vapor whenever he was near to it recall- 

 ing most keenly the old desire, and even four years elapsed before he 

 felt himself fully emancipated from the dangerous habit. 



The craving attaches itself to other substances than I have hitherto 

 named. I have known it connected with that most nauseous of all 

 medicines, asafoetida ; I have known it strongly attach itself to another 

 medicine, valerian ; and once I knew it attach itself to turpentine. 

 My learned and very good friend the late Dr. Willis, of Barnes, had a 

 patient who acquired the craving for common wood or methylated 

 spirit ; and there are many who have acquired a liking for spirit that 

 is flavored or more than flavored with fusel-oil. 



The readiness with which mankind will attach themselves to varied 

 cravings is shown again and on a comparatively large scale in the 

 north of Ireland. In a district there, of which Draper's Town is the 

 center, the eminent Father Mathew labored in his lifetime with such 

 magical effect that he practically converted the whole district to sobri- 

 ety. A little after his time, and when the influence of his work was 

 fading away, a person came into the district and introduced a new 

 beverage or drink which was not whisky, which was not strong drink, 

 and which, it was said, would do no harm. The bait took, and for 

 over thirty years there has existed in the place I have named a genera- 

 tion or two of ether-drinkers. I have visited this place recently and 

 found the habit still in progress. The ether-drinker tosses off his two 

 or three ounces of common ether, as another man tosses off gin or whis- 

 ky. He passes rapidly into a state of quick excitement and intoxica- 

 tion, is often senseless for a brief period, and then rapidly regains the 

 sober state. He suffers less from this process in the way of organic 

 disease than he would from a similar number of intoxications from 

 alcohol; but he gains, as he would from alcohol, the same intense crav- 



