VOL. XIX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRAN3ACTIONS. 101 



they come to a medium of a different density ; or how, or by what means the 

 air remains in small holes, in a concave spherical form, I must leave to the 

 ■ learned to determine. 



On the Use of Opium among the Turks. Bj/ Dr. Edward Smyth, F. R. S. 



N° 221, p. 2SS. 



My residence in Turkey having given me an opportunity of informing my- 

 self, how far the Turks are gone into the use of opium, and what are the com- 

 mon effects of it ; I presume to offer an account of my observations to the 

 Society. 



I made inquiry for the most famous opium eater in the country about 

 Smyrna, and had recommended to me one Mustapha Shatoor, an inhabitant of 

 Sediqui, a village 6 miles from that city, by trade a coffee-man, and 45 years 

 old when I discoursed with him. He told me his constant eating, was three 

 drams a day of crude opium, one half of which was his dose in the morning, 

 and the other half in the afternoon, but that he could safely take double this 

 quantity. 



Resolving therefore to be an eye-witness of what he could do; I provided the 

 best opium I could get, and weighed it nicely into drams ; I desired him to 

 come to me before he had taken any part of his dose, and that I would enter- 

 tain him the next morning; he took the invitation thankfully, and came to me 

 the next day, at Q in the morning, but excused his having taken half a dram 

 before, because he wanted strength to rise out of his bed without it. I laid 

 before him my opium made up in pills, each weighing a dram, and desired him 

 to eat what he pleased; he took one dram and a half, making it up in three 

 pills, and chewing it with a little water; he commended the opium, but was 

 not willing to eat more at that time, and I would not press him, for fear of ac- 

 cidents. He stayed with me about half an hour after he had eaten the opium ; 

 the visible effects it had upon him were to make his eyes sparkle, and to give a 

 new air of life and brightness to his face. He told me, that he was extremely 

 refreshed, and made very cheerful by my entertainment, and that it gave him 

 his keph, as the Turks express it. 



He went from me to his coftee-house, and being desirous to observe him 

 that dav, I found him in half an hour labouring heartily at cleaving wood to 

 burn. I desired his company again, when he was prepared for a 2d dose; he 

 came to me at 3 in the afternoon, and took the same quantity as in the morn- 

 ing, and appeared after it with the same symptoms. He told me he would be 

 again ready for the same quantity, at the same distance of time, but I pursued 

 the experiment no further. He says it has always the same effects, giving him 



