PAPAVER SOMNIFERUM. 89 



to the present time, it has seldom been used without injury 

 to the sufferer in long-standing coughs, continued diarrhoea, 

 habitual wakefulness, chronic sickness, spasms, anxiety, and 

 tremors, when they have been some time established. Such 

 symptoms, depending upon diseases between which and Opium 

 there is no connection, cannot be permanently cured by it, so as 

 to effect a durable establishment of health. 



" In administering Opium for the chronic complaints above 

 mentioned, we perceive that it is on the principle of soothing, 

 procuring a temporary suspension of suffering ; that subse- 

 quently it will relieve only by increasing the dose, which even 

 then becomes less effective, and at the same time creates new 

 disease, an artificial malady, still more serious and distressing 

 than the first. 



" But it is yet more striking to observe that, up to the 

 present time, the use of Opium has been abused by giving it in 

 all kinds of pains, however deep-seated and of however long 

 standing. It shocks our understanding, and seems like return- 

 ing to the absurd idea of an universal medicine, to expect from 

 it the cure of diseases totally different to each other. But Opium 

 does not, strictly speaking, belong to the class of remedies that 

 soothe and cure pain. It is almost the only medicine that does 

 not excite a single pain during its primitive action. Other 

 medicines elicit their own peculiar symptoms, and are therefore 

 capable of curing homceopathically the symptoms resembling 

 them. But Opium has not the power of effectually curing any 



kind of pain whatever, because, instead of exciting pain during 

 its first action, it extinguishes the sense of it, the inevitable 

 reaction of which causes greater sensitiveness than before, and 



consequently increases suffering. 



" Therefore, all pains soothed for the moment by Opium 

 return after a short time, when the stupifying effect is past, as 

 bad as before, and very often still more intense ; so that at last 

 they will only yield to stronger and larger doses, which create 

 in return other serious diseases new to the sufferer. The use 



