2nd. That is what we want to know, and are as far off from as ever. For the Opium smoker is as contented with Opium with its active principle abstracted as he is with the Opium usually sold for smoking purposes, which contains seven per cent of Morphia.
"3rd. After indulgence of five, ten, or twenty years, is it difficult to give up the habit?·
What would be the testimony of 5,000 old smokers on this point?"
3rd. No. In my ten years' experience in the medical charge of Opium smokers in the Hongkong Gaol, I have not found what difficulty there is in giving up the habit, unless it be want of strength of will, which is a difficulty easily surmounted in the Gaol, where a prisoner is not allowed a will of his own, but a greater difficulty to overcome, as I have found, in private practice.
The difficulty seems to me to be purely imaginary on the patients' part; all of them have the idea they shall suffer pain or death if deprived of the drug at once. Old prisoners resume the habit on going out of Gaol, though they have been years without, but on returning to Gaol they never make any objection to being deprived of it, as they do in the first instance. Perhaps if I live long enough I may get 5,000 Opium smokers' opinions on the subject.
"4th. Are the salts of Morphia ever used by the Chinese to get rid of Opium smoking?" 4th. Certainly they are. Nobody disputes the fact, and I regret to think that it is by the advice, in some cases, of professional men who ought to know better than to substitute one vice for another.
I admit that Opium smoking is a vice when money is spent on it that should have gone for necessaries; the smoker for his own selfish gratification spending money that should support himself and family.
"5th. How many pounds of the Morphia Salts are sold to the Chinese annually by Messrs.
WATSON & Co.?"
5th. An unnecessary enquiry. If Messrs. WATSON & Co. are engaged in substituting the more serious vice of Morphia dosing for Opium smoking, the Anti-opium League should expose such a pernicious practice, and show, as I am endeavouring to do, that it is unnecessary for the cure of Opium smoking.
"6th. How many pounds are sold by other Druggists?"
"7th. Does Morphia in any form enter into the Anti-opium powder sold so extensively by
Messrs. WATSON & Co. for the cure of Opium smoking?"
6th and 7th. To both these questions the answer is I do not know. I say it is not necessary in the case of Opium smoking.
"8th. Is a salt of Morphia taken into the stomach, or injected hypodermatically, a substitute in any degree for Opium Smoking? If so, how much sulphate or hydrochlorate of morphia would be required to substitute one mace of the prepared Opium? How much five mace? and so on?"
8th. No, most certainly not. The ordinary dose of Morphia in my experience either internally or hypodermically acts on the Opium smoker the same as it would on any one who did not use Opium in any form. He would be a foolhardy man who, on the strength of an Opium smoker's habit, increased the ordinary full dose of Morphia before testing its action on the patient, and would certainly risk, under this Government, a Coroner's inquest.
"9th. If Morphia Salts are a substitute for Opium, and if they are actually used by Opium smokers for that purpose, is it scientific nonsense for Dr. AYRES to say that the great principle of the Opium Morphia, in smoking sense seems to vanish? Čertainly it in no way affects the Smoker."
9th. Needs no answer other than above, the Morphia Salts not being a necessary substitute.
"10th. If no Morphia goes from the Opium smoked, into the smoker's system, why would not quassia, or ginseng, or carbonate of ammonia, or camphor, or tobacco, be as good· a substitute?" 10th. Because none of these would make a smokeable compound satisfactory to the Opium smoker except tobacco, and it is not necessary to go to that expense, cabbage leaves would do as well.
"11th. If Morphia is not sublimed in the Smoke, what part is played by the other alkaloids
contained in the Opium?"
"
11th. We are trying to ascertain, but not having a proper laboratory at present, the work is slow.
12th. What foreign substance is added in the process of preparing the Extract for smoking? 12th. Nothing whatever, except water. I have watched the whole process from beginning to end. The preparation of Opium by the Opium Farmer consists in getting all that is soluble in the rough Opium from it, and evaporating the solution till it is an extract of sufficient consistency for smoking. Nothing is added but water, and nothing is taken away but the water added.