Note 205 — Chapter XXIV · IN THE PLANTING DISTRICTS
Reading edition
517Mr. J. Ferguson, of the Ceylon Observer, writes to the Secretary of the Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade showing how much opium-eating (laudanum and morphia, or pure opium) may be counteracted by a liberal use of quinine. It is known to be practised to a very serious extent in the Fen districts of Cambridge and Lincolnshire, about Gravesend on the Thames, and in other malarial districts, as well as by underfed men and women in unhealthy houses in great cities.
He quotes Mr. Archibald Colquhoun, in his ‘Journey Across Chrysê,’ to show how many Chinamen, victims to this curse, realise the efficacy of quinine in superseding the need of opium and possibly curing the craving for it; and how both mandarins and people craved for a pinch, as the best gift he could bestow on them. He shows how beneficial this tonic would also be to horses and cattle in malarial regions, if only it could reach the consumer at anything approaching the modest price which would pay the cultivator.