136 A STUDY IN HEREDITY 



habit has produced widespread and grave moral evils among the 

 population of India ? " Sir Lepel Grifin replied : " No, I do not 

 think there is a single resident in India who knows anything on 

 the subject who would possibly say so. I do not think I am 

 singular in my opinion." ^ 



Sir William Moore said : 



"Well, I came to the conclusion that opium smoking was 

 practically harmless, and that drinking umal pawnee, or opium 

 water, was practically harmless. ... I should wish to draw atten- 

 tion to the fact that insurance societies do not impose a higher 

 rate on opium eaters. With respect to that they are guided by 

 the medical officers of these societies. They were addressed 

 some little time ago in Calcutta and Bombay, and they all gave 

 the same answer." ^ 



To the question — " Then you would compare the use of opium 

 amongst these people to the use, the moderate use, of alcoholic 

 liquors amongst ourselves ? " Dr Mount replied : " Undoubtedly ;" 

 and in answer to the further question — " And quite as harmless ? " 

 " Yes, quite ; in fact, more so, because a man shows a flushed 

 face and many other indications of familiarity with alcohol, but 

 you could detect nothing of the kind in the case of those who 

 used opium. They were all temperate ; I never saw in the whole 

 thirteen years I was living amongst them (and I saw them daily) 

 — they came to me at the out-door dispensary or at the hospital, 

 and as a friend, and I never saw in all that time an opium drunkard." 

 In answer to the question — "Will you explain to the Commission 

 what you yourself have observed as to the evils of the opium 

 habit?" he said: "I never saw anyone who exhibited such an 

 amount of misuse of opium, not one in all the whole course of 

 that time, so I cannot speak from personal knowledge." And, 

 again, to the question — "You did not see any sufferers from 

 opium ? " he replied : " No, not one." ^ 



^ " First Report, Royal Commission on Opium," p. io8. 

 ' Op. cit., pp. 71-2. 2 Op. cit, p. 75. 



