OPIUM 13s 



dental or wilful poisoning by opium, I never knew of a single 

 instance of death from its use ; and I have never met with any 

 one who, in his own personal experience, has known a case of 

 death or of injury to health from the habitual use of opium as 

 practised by the people of any part of India proper. I exclude 

 Burmah : I know nothing of it. . . . So far as I can remember, 

 in the printed tables used in Indian civil and military hospitals 

 for the entry of diseases, there is no column for the ' opium habit.' 

 On the strength of my personal experience I should be prepared 

 to defy any one to bring forward, from their personal experience, 

 a single authentic record of death, or shortened life, from habitual 

 opium eating or drinking in India. If any one can, let him, and 

 the means of verifying his or her statement are always, within the 

 current generation, accessible in India." ^ 



Sir Joseph Fayrer wrote : 



■' There cannot be a doubt that, in the great cities of India, in 

 China, and probably elsewhere in the East, the abuse of opium 

 is carried by a certain but a limited number to a great extent, 

 but to nothing like the extent to which the abuse of alcohol — 

 i.e. by the English — is carried. It is well known that over large 

 areas of country in India, by tens of thousands of people, opium 

 in moderation is habitually used by the natives. ... It is said, 

 I believe, by its opponents that the tendency of opium eating is 

 ever to increase — to induce, it may be slow but sure, degradation 

 and destruction. ... I do not believe this. In the course of 

 many years' experience in India, I have known so many who 

 have been habitual consumers of a small quantity of opium with- 

 out in any way suffering from it, or without any tendency to 

 increase the habit, that I am unable to agree with those who 

 state otherwise." - 



In answer to the question — ^"The general effect of your 

 evidence has been that, from your wide opportunities of obser- 

 vation in India, you have not seen that what is called the opium 



1 " First Report, Royal Commission on Opium," pp. 77-8. 

 ^ Op. cit., p. III. 



