The Opium Habit

"His tastes were very simple, though a little troublesome, at least to the servant who prepared his repast. Coffee, boiled rice and milk, and a piece of mutton from the loin wer...

My knowledge of the Oriental tongues is not remarkably extensive, being, indeed, confined to two words--the Arabic word for barley and the Turkish for opium (madjoon), which I h...

It may aid the reader to form some adequate notion of the dreary length to which these nights drew themselves along, to mention that on one occasion, wearied out and disgusted w...

But the clammy sweat continues--pouring from every point of the surface--saturating the garments next the skin as if they had been dipped in a tub of water. Presently our patien...

In reference to these statements regarding Coleridge's physical condition, Cottle remarks: "I can testify that, during the four or five years in which Mr. C. resided in or near...

From that hour my fate was decided. I applied with unwearied devotion to the study of the classics--the only branch of education attended to in the school--and I even considered...

Since De Quincey gave to the world his famous "Confessions," people have been content to regard opium-eating as a strangely fascinating or as a strangely horrible vice. England,...

I have often been asked how I first came to be a regular opium-eater, and have suffered very unjustly in the opinion of my acquaintance, from being reputed to have brought upon...

If to these discomforts be added a prevailing tendency to a febrile condition of body, together with permanent disorder in portions of the secretory system, the catalogue of ann...

I had now firmly resolved to free myself from my fatal habit; and the very day I reached home I began to diminish the quantity I was then taking by one grain per day. I received...

"'Of sorrow and humiliation I will say nothing. No part of Coleridge's embarrassment arises from his wife and children, except that he has insured his life for a thousand pounds...

After making several abortive attempts of this kind, I tried at last the substitution of laudanum for alcohol. It was a most fatal move! for the final result was a bondage of wh...

The opium-eater is prevailingly disinclined to, and in some sort incapacitated for, bodily exertion or locomotion. A considerable part of the time he feels something like a sens...

When the clock struck twelve at midnight, and I knew that for the first time in many years I had lived for an entire day without opium, it excited no surprise or exultation. The...

"The worst night that I have had since my indisposition commenced. It was, I believe, a case of _croup_ combined with the affection of the liver and the lungs. Nor was it unlike...

Two days more and I had come down to twenty-five grains. Matters now began to look a good deal more serious. Only fifteen of the last forty grains had been dispensed with; but t...

However, as some people in spite of all laws to the contrary will persist in asking what became of the opium-eater, and in what state he now is, I answer for him thus: The reade...

The opium-eater either dies in collapse through nervous exhaustion (with the blood-poisoning and delirium above-mentioned), sometimes after an overdose, but oftener seeming to o...

Likewise I suppose there are very few people who could patiently regard the fact that one of the very purest and bravest souls I ever knew had become so demoralized by the perse...

When simple nervous excitement had for two days alternated with the already mentioned intervals of delirious slumber, a dull, aching sensation began manifesting itself between h...

"After my death, I earnestly entreat that a full and unqualified narrative of my wretchedness, and of its guilty cause, may be made public, that at least some little good may be...

"One or two words on Coleridge as an opium-eater. We have not often read a sentence falling from a wise man with astonishment so profound as that particular one in a letter of C...

"These circumstances I mention to account for my having written any thing in a happy or genial state of mind, when I was in a general state so opposite, by my own description, t...

Let me repeat, that the main thing for the patient at this point of his trial is not to forego the advantage he has already attained--"not to go back." If he can only hold his o...

Another most important means of alleviation is the galvanic bath. House's patent is an excellent apparatus for the purpose; convenient in shape and size, comfortable, not easily...

This amount I divide into three equal doses--one to be administered after each meal. By administering them after meals I give nutrition the start of narcotism, prevent the viole...

Our object with Mr. Edgerton during the month of struggle has been to assist Nature in eliminating the obsolete matters of the system by all the excretory passages as preparativ...