Page:Confessions of an English opium-eater (IA confessionsofeng00dequrich).pdf/18

 enjoyments of alcohol, I take it for granted,

That those eat now, who never ate before; And those who always ate, now eat the more.

Indeed, the fascinating powers of opium are admitted, even by medical writers, who are its greatest enemies: thus, for instance, Awsiter, apothecary to Greenwich Hospital, in his "Essay on the Effects of Opium" (published in the year 1763), when attempting to explain, why Mead had not been sufficiently explicit on the properties, counter-agents, etc., of this drug, expresses himself in the following mysterious terms, (ϕωναντα συνετοισι): "Perhaps he thought the subject of too delicate a nature to be made common; and as many people might then indiscriminately use it, it would take from that necessary fear and caution, which should prevent their experiencing the extensive power of this drug: for there are many properties in it, if universally known, that would habituate the use, and make it more in request with us than the Turks themselves: the result of which knowledge," he adds,