WHAT IS A STIMULANT? 
83 
pupil ensues. In tliis stage tlie breathing is of a snorting 
character^ and both it and the pulse are below the normal 
level of health. Flushing of the features and congestion of 
the eyes always occurs to a greater or less extent, and shows 
the existence of paralysis of the nerves which govern the 
vessels of the face and cranium } but of course this symptom 
is greatly aggravated when muscular struggles occur by 
purely mechanical means. Unless when a very profound 
degree of narcosis is required, a skilful operator will time the 
process of inducing angesthesia very nearly to the period of 
four minutes in the great majority of cases. It may be 
effected much more rapidly, but irregular phenomena are then 
more apt to occur, and it is not so easy to keep such a check 
on the strength of the inspired vapour as will make fatal 
accidents (as they ought to he) impossible. 
The above description will give a pretty good idea of the 
regular and consecutive way in which easily diffusible 
narcotics paralyse the various portions of the nervous system, 
and of the sort of signs which indicate the commencement 
and progress of the poisoning. With alcohol the case differs 
slightly ; flushing of the features nearly always precedes the 
occurrence of intellectual confusion and thickened speech, and 
might be taken as a warning. A symptom which, in the case 
of chloroform, is not very easy of appreciation; viz., partial 
numbness of the lips, owing to paralysis of sensory branches 
of the fifth nerve, occurs quite early in alcohol-narcosis. The 
rest of this process is strictly analogous to that induced by 
chloroform, except that it is less rapid of course ; and that in- 
voluntary convulsion very rarely occurs. It ends, if carried far 
enough, like chloroform-narcosis (sloiuly continued for a very long 
while) in death, by cessatioox-of the resjpiratory movements ; but 
if (what actually does occur in fatal accidents to human beings 
surgically operated on under chloroform) a very large dose be 
suddenly thrown into the circulation, it falls on the heart, and may 
paralyse it at once, though in the case of alcohol this is rare. 
The action of opium has been more misunderstood and mis- 
represented, perhaps, than that of any drug in the Phar- 
macopoeia. It has been taken for granted by the majority of 
writers that the characteristic effect of this substance, the 
effect in virtue of which it proves medicinal, is a depressing 
one. Those, however, who have had the largest experience 
of its action under a variety of circumstances will at once 
agree that every desirable medicinal effect which can be 
obtained from it is of a purely stimulant kind. It is precisely 
when the action of the drug produces no languor or depression 
whatever that its usefulness is the most decided. What we 
desire to produce by opium, in the case of a patient racked by 
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