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QUESTION NO. 11.-Certainly they would supply themselves with opium from elsewhere. They are not likely to take alcohol either in European forms or in the form of their own spirit samshu. But opinm they will have. Cut down the Indian opium so that it becomes unprocurable in China and too expensive in India, and China will grow opium sufficient for all Eastern nations and Europe too if it can make a profit on it, and they are rapidly even now improving their own growth and manufacture of opium.
Make opium too expensive for consumption in India and it will be smuggled wholesale over the Chinese and Persian borders. For China, if it sees a chance of profit, will rapidly comply with all demands, improvement in manufacture, &c.
An
Even now the soluble preparations of morphine are being largely imported into China and the Chinese have learnt from the Missionary Doctors the uses and benefits of the hypodermic syringe. Ordinance against the use of hypodermic injections of morphine except by qualified Medical men had to be introduced into the Colony this year, as dozens of petty shop-keepers were using it at one cent the half grain injection, and they soon had hundreds of clients who found it was cheaper than opium smoking and the effect was much greater.
No other drug is likely to supersede opium or its extractives.
QUESTION NO. 12.-Only the latter portion of this question can be answered by me. Certainly the loss of revenue from this source would excite general indignation as the decrease in this source of revenue has already. It is a tax on a luxury used by a minority. The estimate put on the number of opium smokers to population in China is put by the Chinese Customs returns at 2 per thousand, and my Annual Reports show that among the Criminal Population in this Colony the opium smokers are under 2 per thousand. Can any European country show that among its criminal population that habitual drunkards are under 2 per thousand, I am not talking of ordinary consumers of alcoholic liquors?
QUESTION NO. 13.-The only European contracting the habit of opium smoking that have come under notice have been two or three women in the European brothels in this Colony as I mentioned in answer to question 2. The reason is not very far to seek. Europeans have no belief and no general knowledge of its medicinal efficiency. The excessive amount of trouble in preparing a pipe and the time it takes for the pleasure of three or four inhalations at most is against its becoming a European vice. With the cigar pipe or cigarette the smoker can ride, walk, read and write, and talk and pursue his ordinary avocations while enjoying the pleasure. It is for this reason that the Eastern modes of consuming tobacco in the Narghili Hooka or Chibouk have not been taken to by Europeans.
In smoking opium your whole attention must be given to the pipe and that only you can talk while you are preparing the load, but you can do nothing else; it is the same with the Eastern methods of smoking tobacco: you can talk but you must support the pipe; you cannot move about with it and there is a loss of freedom.
QUESTION NO. 14.-Generally it begins by a recommendation for the relief of some physical ill either by a friend or doctor. Opium smoking is rarely taken to from the force of example.
Certainly opium is of benefit as a prophylactic in malarious districts and to bowel complaints from exposure and chills in my experience, and it is so regarded by Indians and Chinese.
QUESTION NO. 15.-I have treated a good many cases, very few desire to get rid of the habit. I have talked with hundreds and rarely heard that desire expressed.
QUESTION NO. 17.-There are one or two things I would draw attention to. I have often been asked by Europeans if their servants or employees were, in my opinion, addicted to opium smoking, the man being brought before me looking dull and stupid forgetting what he is told, bringing the wrong thing, &c., denies that he ever smoked opium. Often a servant is set down by a master for these causes as being an opium smoker. These are the effects among the Chinese of a night in a brothel and over-copulation, but neither the servant nor his friends, the other servants, will tell the cause.
Certainly these effects are well known among the Chinese and on the returns of deaths by Chinese doctors on the deceased's friends received by the Registrar General every year some dozen or so of cases are returned as deaths from excessive copulation. The patient when brought in for examination looks very often as if he were on the verge of having a fit. Another thing accounts for many wonderful stories, that an Asiatic when interrogated by a European will seek to know the reason and what is wanted and is always anxious to make his opinions coincide with the views of his questioner and if possible gain his approbation, so long as it in no way interferes with his own interest and he has nothing to gain or lose by differing.
In conclusion, I have sent in with these answers, my Annual Report for 1891 in triplicate which gives a full account of my experience of opium smokers in the Victoria Gaol with experiments by the Government Analyst, Mr. MCCALLUM, shewing the value of native opinions as to the quality and the effects of opium.
PH. B. C. AYRES, Colonial Surgeon.
Government Civil Hospital, 19th December, 1893.