IN SINGAPORE 
57 
all show impunity to disease. For instance case No. 2 dies from 
consumption at the age of 42, but nothing more is added except that 
for 3 years she had taken Opium in a solid form and led a licentious 
life. Case No. 3, is that of a well known literary character who is 
said to have enjoyed tolerable good health. Case No. 4 a lady dies 
about 50 and has taken laudanum for about 20 years, but concerning 
her health, her feelings, or her death nothing is recorded. No. 6 a 
lady about 60 gave it up after using it 20 years during which she en¬ 
joyed good health and subsequently resumed it. Now with Professor 
Christison’s leave I would doubt one or two things in this case, first I 
question if one could at the age of 60 give it up after using the drug 
for 20 years, second, why was it given up ? either it was doing bodi¬ 
ly harm, or it was considered as an evil habit, if either why was it 
resumed ? simply In my opinion because however much harm it oc¬ 
casioned yet the discontinuance of the habit caused more misery, and 
suffering. No. 7 is the case of the earl of Mar who died from jaun¬ 
dice and dropsy, two diseases that frequently cut off Opium eaters. I 
am sorry that the limits of this paper will not allow me to analyze 
the remaining cases, but they are much after the fashion of the ones 
quoted. Now let me ask the candid reader if I cited an equal number 
of cases of men who had reached a similar age, with as few com¬ 
plaints, yet were habitually intemperate, would I on the strength of 
these cases he believed when X asserted that the evil habit of intem¬ 
perance did not shorten life, I should be laughed to scorn, and 
deservedly so, aud so ought he, who asserts that the habitual use Of 
Opium does not shorten man’s life, supposing he was as well acquain¬ 
ted with the effects of Opium eating as dram drinking. 
Truly it is impossible to say positively when a man’s life is short¬ 
ened by human means, but when you see a shrunken, shrivelled 
wretch, attenuated to a skeleton, but not with years; whose eyes 
ree dim, tho’ not with age, yet sunken, glazed and rheumy ; when 
you find that he can scarcely drag his limbs from weakness, or move 
his body from pain; when he complains of feverish, restless sleep, 
and wakens giddy and sick, to loathe all food, or anything but the pipe, 
when his bowels are often confined for 10 days, then loose as often 
