There is probably no subject in the world upon which people entertain such erroneous ideas as that of the effect upon the mind of smoking opium. The generally received opinion, and one to be found in most of the works of travel in China, is that the smoker, having finished a few pipes, falls back in a heavy death-like sleep that knows no waking until the effects have passed away, and that is peopled with the most fascinating and pleasing dreams. Even Dickens errs in his ideas of the effects of the drug when inhaled. It is extremely rare to find an opium-smoker sleeping. Indeed, the opium keeps him awake many times, and it is of this inability to sleep that he complains. The effect of the pipe is to produce a pleasant condition of dreamy wakefulness, in which the smoker feels perfectly happy, at peace with himself and all the world, ready to forgive his enemy, and do great things for his friend. It is a state that approaches as closely as an American can ever come to the dolce far niente of the Italian. A feeling of perfect rest and contentment steals over him, hope is brightened, and he revels in enlarged and pleasing anticipation. When he rises, if he has not smoked to great excess, he feels exhilarated, and walks with elasticity and rapidity. Upon the hard bunk the things of to-day, the squalid surroundings, all fade away. This waking dream, this silken garment of the imagination, will take its shape and coloring from the most brilliant and cherished strands that are running through the web and woof of his life’s story. At one and the same time it puts out of sight harsh realities, and replaces them by a bubble whose play of colors and misty outlines are born of the pipe alone.

That the smoker imagines himself immensely wealthy or possessed of magnificent fame, that he thinks he has been in the company of kings and princes, and that the world is a foot-ball at his feet, is the most complete absurdity. I have talked with many habitués, both Americans and Chinese, have seen them smoke, and have smoked with them, and have never yet found one who had had such experience. As the smoker’s hopes, ambitions, aspirations, and longings are, so will be the figures and incidents of his opium reverie.

The pleasurable sensations that follow the first stage, or that of moderate exhilaration or talkativeness, vary in duration according to the temperament of the individual and the amount of the drug used. Following it there may or may not be sleep, but it is never filled with dreams, and rarely comes until the person goes to bed. Sleepers are rarely seen in a "joint." Parties of two or three will be found grouped about each tray, either listlessly thinking, cooking, and smoking, or chatting quietly and indolently with one another. In some places there is loud talking from group to group, singing, and occasional wine-drinking. This, however, is foreign to the practice, and will heartily disgust a true smoker. The darkened room, the subdued voices, the hissing and bubbling of the pipe, the aroma of the cooking opium, and the different faces half lit by the dim light of the little opium lamp, serve to impress a visitor with a sense of awe and astonishment.

Smoking to decided excess will sometimes produce deep sleep—a sleep, however, devoid of pleasing dreams, but pregnant with horrid phantasmagoria and uncanny scenes that terrify and disgust the victim. Such effects often come to the novice who pushes the indulgence too far. Hallucinations, delusions, labored action of the heart, intense nausea and vomiting, and great prostration follow. This happened to two of my nurses and myself. Some smokers are nauseated every time they indulge for from three to six months, and still they persist; others are never troubled by it.

The smoker finds after a time that the pleasurable sensations of the first few months disappear, and he only smokes to avoid the terrible suffering that usually accompanies the effort to abandon the practice. The good spirit of the magical pipe has disappeared, giving place to a demon who binds his victim hand and foot. The shackles that he has lazily and indolently riveted upon himself now refuse to be unloosed, and he finds himself no longer drawn to his idol with silken cords, but driven to continue a practice he loathes by the suffering so sure to follow its abandonment. Pitiable indeed is such a one in his weakness.

The physical and mental ill effects of opium-smoking manifest themselves in disinclination for continued mental effort, weakening of the will-power, wavering in decision, loss of memory, emaciation, soreness of the eyes, obstinate constipation, hemorrhoids, dyspepsia, catarrhal inflammation of the throat and bowels, lassitude, impotence, and partial paralysis of the bladder.

Smoking to decided excess will sometimes produce deep sleep—a sleep, however, devoid of pleasing dreams, but pregnant with horrid phantasmagoria and uncanny scenes that terrify and disgust the victim. Such effects often come to the novice who pushes the indulgence too far. Hallucinations, delusions, labored action of the heart, intense nausea and vomiting, and great prostration follow. This happened to two of my nurses and myself. Some smokers are nauseated every time they indulge for from three to six months, and still they persist; others are never troubled by it.

The smoker finds after a time that the pleasurable sensations of the first few months disappear, and he only smokes to avoid the terrible suffering that usually accompanies the effort to abandon the practice. The good spirit of the magical pipe has disappeared, giving place to a demon who binds his victim hand and foot. The shackles that he has lazily and indolently riveted upon himself now refuse to be unloosed, and he finds himself no longer drawn to his idol with silken cords, but driven to continue a practice he loathes by the suffering so sure to follow its abandonment. Pitiable indeed is such a one in his weakness.

The physical and mental ill effects of opium-smoking manifest themselves in disinclination for continued mental effort, weakening of the will-power, wavering in decision, loss of memory, emaciation, soreness of the eyes, obstinate constipation, hemorrhoids, dyspepsia, catarrhal inflammation of the throat and bowels, lassitude, impotence, and partial paralysis of the bladder.

The effect financially is very bad indeed. The process of cooking and smoking taking, for full satisfaction, a number of hours each day, business is almost invariably neglected, and the devotee, if he continues, becomes ruined. The opium pipe, with the accompanying indolence, is one of the greatest thieves of time. A hard smoker will spend most of the day and night in a joint.

A curious point in this connection is that those smokers who have opium and a full outfit at home prefer to smoke in the low joints, partly from the companions to be found there, partly because they seem to get a more decided effect from the constantly used pipes and in the smoke-loaded atmosphere of these places. An habitué who smokes to excess is called a "fiend."

The Chinese have an idea that when a woman has once smoked from a pipe it becomes worthless, failing to color, and being liable to split. For this reason female smokers are always given the poorest pipes in the place.

An ordinary smoker will consume about three drachms of smoking opium (equal in strength to six drachms of crude opium) in a day. This will cost him from fifty to seventy-five cents. "Fiends" have been known to smoke as much as a pound and a quarter a day.

Some idea of the extent to which opium is smoked by white men in this country may be gained from the fact that actors and travelling salesmen who have been in every town of any importance say that they have never found a city yet, East or West, where smoking places were not to be found, and where from one to twenty whites, male and female, were smoking. Dr. Remondino, of San Francisco, Dr. Shurtleff, of Stockton, California, Dr. Papin, of St. Louis, and Dr. Harris, of Virginia City, Nevada, assure me that the practice is rapidly spreading in spite of the most stringent laws, imposing heavy fines and imprisonment, having been passed. In San Francisco so great did the evil become, so many women and young girls were led to these opium-houses and taught smoking and other evil practices, that in 1876 it was found necessary to pass a city ordinance, under which arrests are constantly being made. The only effect has been to scatter the smokers, and close the more public places. Smoking, however, is going on just the same.

Our census of 1880 gives us a Chinese population of 105,440. With an actual falling off in population, or a condition of standstill, how can we account for the enormous increase in the amount of smoking opium reaching us in the past few years, and more especially the last year? In 1879, with a falling off of 3402 in the number of Chinamen in this country, there was an increase of 5843 pounds in the smoking opium imported, an increase of 7377 pounds in 1878 over that imported in 1877. Thus, with a falling off of 3402 in Chinese population from October, 1876, to 1880, there was an increase of 7456 pounds of smoking opium. The increase in ten years time (1870-1880) amounts to 39,372 pounds.

At a low estimate we have 4000 Americans smoking this drug. As an average we may safely say that each smoker consumes 100 grains of opium daily. Multiplying this by the number of smokers, we have 400,000 grains daily, and this by the number of days in a year gives us 146,000,000 grains, or about 19,000 pounds.

At a low estimate we may say that ten per cent of the adult Chinamen in America smoke regularly. This would give us 10,544 Chinamen smoking; and supposing each to consume daily 100 grains, we have a total for the year of 50,240 pounds. We have here probably underestimated the number of Americans and Chinamen smoking, and the amount smoked. In any event, taking Americans and Chines smokers together, we get a yearly total of 69, 240 pounds of smoking opium consumed.

Besides the opium imported for smoking, some is smuggled by Chinamen coming to this country, some is made here from crude opium by the keepers of the lower-class dens; and No. 2, a mixture of the ash left after smoking No. 1 and crude opium, boiled together and filtered, is also used. Ordinary smoking opium leaves thirty-three per cent of ash, which is very powerful, six grains sufficing to paralyze a rabbit when injected under its skin.

A lover of his kind must needs view with no little apprehension the spread of so seductive a vice, and one that, despite the most stringent measures for its suppression, is spreading rapidly in all parts of this country. While it is true that this manner of narcotic intoxication is neither so injurious nor so rapid in its effects as the use of the drug by the mouth or hypodermically, still it is sufficiently injurious to demand careful study and attention. Those frightful pictures of thin, cadaverous, sallow-faced Chinamen, just on the brink of the grave, as depicted by many as the result of excessive opium-smoking, I have never yet seen amongst Americans. Indeed, as a class, they are stout and healthy, although having smoked the drug for from two to ten years.

Between opium-smoking and chronic alcoholism there can be no comparison whatever, the latter working by far the greater physical, moral, and financial ruin in a shorter time. Moreover, those ill effects that result from inordinate smoking are felt by the individual alone. He never beats his wife in his frenzy, destroys furniture, shoots his friend, or stabs his enemy; he does not go reeling through the street to fall at last an inert mass in the gutter, there to sleep off the debauch, unless disturbed and locked up by a policeman.

It must be remembered, however, that, like the alcoholic inebriate, and unlike the morphia injector, he has not the excuse of sleepless nights or agonizing pain to drive him to the practice, but deliberately and willfully walks into a bondage simply to satisfy a morbid appetite. Opium, however used, is a drug that can not be trifled with, and one that binds firmer than any bands that man can weave.