Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 May 1883 — OPIUM-EATERS. [ARTICLE]

OPIUM-EATERS.

Among literary men the habit is by no means an uncommon one. Thomas DeQuincey leads the list. Ke began eating opium to relieve his dyspepsia, and in eight years attained a maximum for the 'day of 8,000 drops, since his friend Sinclair saw him toss off a wine glass of laudanum as though it had been a glass of water. The poet and essayist, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was a great opium-eater. When a student at Cambridge he was affected with a disease of the knees, and, to relieve his pain, found solace in laudanum. His first dose was twenty drops, and in four years he was able to use a pint in three days and a half. Lamartine, the French historian, poet and statesman, was confirmed in the habit, and Robert Hall, who began life when a lad of six by taking opium to alleviate pain resulting from a spinal disease, became so much of an expert that he could take a thousand drops of laudanum a day. John Randolph, of Roanoke, who boasted of a descent from Pocahontas, the witty and sarcastic Virginian, was a great lover of opium, and continually carried the fascinating little pellets with him, convenient for use. It is to be noted in speaking of the quantity of opium taken that it varies within certain limits, and may not exceed the maximum. The smallest quantities which can be taken continuously without any marked effect or reaction are variable with the individual. When the morphine-eater has reached the maximum dose he is aware of it, and instinctively keeps on this side of it, so that one seldom hears of cases of acute poisoning in morphia. There are individuals who never exceed 0.005 grammes daily, and have similar symptoms to those who consume 2.25 grammes.’ More than 3.5 grammes may not be taken daily continuously. This appears to be the limit, even in the most • pronounced cases— Cincinnati Enquirer.