Note {17} — INTRODUCTION TO THE PAINS OF OPIUM

This, however, is not a necessary conclusion; the varieties of effect produced by opium on different constitutions are infinite. A London magistrate (Harriott’s Struggles through Life, vol. iii. p. 391, third edition) has recorded that, on the first occasion of his trying laudanum for the gout he took forty drops, the next night sixty, and on the fifth night eighty, without any effect whatever; and this at an advanced age. I have an anecdote from a country surgeon, however, which sinks Mr. Harriott’s case into a trifle; and in my projected medical treatise on opium, which I will publish provided the College of Surgeons will pay me for enlightening their benighted understandings upon this subject, I will relate it; but it is far too good a story to be published gratis.