restraint. So far from being a prisoner, he was encouraged in taking walks and drives alone, or, with his fellow-patients, in attending evening amusements, etc. It was the doctor's theory that a person of any sensitiveness of nature could not rest under constant suspicion without a sense of resentment which would be prejudicial to the cordial relation which should always exist between physician and patient. "I ask for and extend confidence," he said, "and believe I largely enhance a good result in so doing. Nor do I share in the opinion, largely held, that no reliance is to be placed upon the word of the opium habitué." Though he was well aware that this morbid habit in many cases exerts a baneful influence on the moral character, it is manifest that—were the doctor's theory of his patient's reliability and truthfulness altogether erroneous—any plan of treatment based upon it would be entirely impracticable, however agreeable to the patients this view of their character.
Within a week after the beginning of treatment my opiate was all withdrawn. What I had undergone at the end of that period, and, indeed, for a day or two subsequent to the total discontinuance, could scarcely be called suffering; it was rather a dull, heavy listlessness, as little painful as enjoyable. There was no mental or physical elasticity; exercise was not inviting—nor, indeed, was there the physical ability for it. It became impossible to read or even to think, except in an idle way. There was no pain or nervousness; but principally a feeling of passive discomfort during this period, when the discontinuance of opium, unaided, would have brought on penal tortures.
Thus "the Rubicon was crossed"—this being the exultant phrase with which the doctor greeted one after the other of our little band, as he passed over that hitherto impassable stream. But the few days succeeding the total deprivation were not so passive. Though I had landed on the other bank of that classic stream, the tug of war was yet to come. That power in the human system which at times seems endowed with a personality of its own—that dual existence, as it were, with its Briarean arms of nerves—revolted. There was a period of disturbance and prostration of strength, with some restlessness. I was for a while the prey of illusions of sight and sound. "Materialized spirits" from the other world seemed at times to hover about my bed, as visible, if not as palpable, as the furniture of my room. But more deceptive still was a loud, sharp voice by which I was addressed occasionally, it seemed, by some person concealed behind the head-board of the bedstead; no speech of man will ever sound more real to me. These were illusions of my waking hours. But the period of prostration which they accompanied was short; and within a few days I again took my place at the table with the family.
More or less insomnia is probably inevitable under any circumstances after the discontinuance of opium. In my convalescence and the experience was parallel with that of my fellow-patients—it was
