Jin Essay on the Opium Trade, including a Sketch of its History,
Extent, Effects, etc., as carried on in India and China. By
Nathan Allen, M. D. Boston. John P. Jewett & Co. 1850.
pp. 68.
The author of the above pamphlet has presented us with a fund
of useful and interesting material that we truly wish we could
place in the hands of all our readers. Want of space, however,
compels us to be satisfied with merely culling from it some details
that cannot fail to be attractive to the medical inquirer, at the
same time that we commend the whole to them for careful
perusal.
The extent to wrhich the cultivation of the poppy and the trade
in opium are carried on in India is almost incredible. In speaking
of the cultivation of this plant, the author of this essay states that
“ it is estimated that more than 100,000 acres of the rich plains of
central India, as well as the alluvial valley of the Ganges, are now
occupied for this purpose. Formerly these same grounds were
used for the production of sugar, indigo, corn and other grain, but
these useful crops have yielded to the more profitable culture of the
poppy-” The greater part of the opium manufactured in India
is consumed by the Chinese, not for medical purposes, but as a
luxury. “ The principal use made of opium by the Chinese is in
the form of smoking, and one great object in the trade is to furnish
an article adapted to their peculiar tastes. This depends somewhat
upon the cultivation of the poppy, the quality of its seed, the
goodness of the soil, the manner of collecting and converting its
juice into a dry extract or balls convenient for transportation. The
Chinese value any sample of opium in direct proportion to the
quantity of hot drawn, watery extract obtainable from it, and to the
purity and strength of that extract when dried and smoked through
a pipe.” To improve its flavor and increase its strength, the
opium, after its arrival in China, is subjected to various processes.
Old smokers will retain the smoke a long time in the lungs, allow-
ing it finally to escape through the nose. As the drug is expen-
sive, those who are poor study to use it so as to obtain the greatest
effect possible from the smallest quantity.
It is supposed that between four and five millions of persons in
China are addicted to the vice of opium smoking, and that on an
average each person consumes upwards of seventeen grains per
day. The quantity consumed depends very much on the habits of
the smoker ; at first he cannot inhale more than from three to six
grains at a time, but will go on gradually increasing the quantity,
till in a few years his daily allowance will reach three hundred
grains. It is calculated that the victims of this vice do not live on
an average more than ten years after they have once fairly given
way to the habit. According to this calculation, between four and
five hundred thousand persons die annually in China from the dele-
terious effects of opium smoking. Well might the native remark :
It is not the man who eats opium, but it is opium that eats the
man.
“ The practice of eating opium, as a luxury, has prevailed for
more than a century in Persia and Turkey, but that of smoking it
originated at a much later period, and has been confined mostly to
China and its adjacent provinces. The effects of the latter prac-
tice, we believe, are far more pernicious than the former.” A
distinguished Chinese scholar in a memorial to the Emperor says :
“ Opium is a poisonous drug, brought from foreign countries, and,
when the poison takes effect, the habit becomes fixed, and the sleep-
ing smokers are like corpses—lean and haggard as demons.” So
strongly does the vice of opium-smoking fasten itself upon its vic-
tim, that having fairly contracted the habit at twenty, he may ex-
pect to die at the age of thirty years. It is very rarely the case
that an habitual opium-smoker relinquishes the practice till his
wretched career is ended by death.
Of the destructive effects of this drug upon an entire community,
the island of Formosa, situated in the Chinese seas, and the pro-
vince of Assam, lying on the eastern frontier of Bengal, afford
most striking examples. Of the latter it is said, since the intro-
duction of opium, “ the women have fewer children compared with
those of other countries, and the children seldom live to become
old men, but in general die at early manhood ; very few old men
being seen in this unfortunate country, compared with others.” In
regard to the former the following remarks occur:—“ The natives
of this place were at first sprightly and active, and being good
soldiers wrnre always successful in battle, but the people called
Hung-maou came thither, and having manufactured opium, seduced
some of the natives into the habit of smoking it. From these the
mania for it rapidly spread throughout the whole nation, so that
in process of time the natives became feeble and enervated, sub-
mitted to foreign rule, and were completely subjugated.”
We are informed by our author that “ more than 50,000 chests
are now annually shipped to China, taking off in return thirty-five
millions of dollars, a sum greater by half than is paid on the whole
imports from all other countries. According to the most recent
intelligence it is estimated that the sale will reach 50,000 chests
the present year.” During the year 1848-9, the clear profits of
the British government in India amounted to $15,488,000 '. And
what return does this immense outlay bring to China ? Nothing
but loss of health, waste of property, mental imbecility, moral
degradation and loss of life, evils that cannot be comprised in dol-
lars and cents : figures and language fail to portray their magni-
tude and extent. Talk of the horrors of the slave trade, bad as it
is, it is mercy compared to this; the horrors of the opium trade
beggar description, and are worse to its victim than any outward
slavery. We wish that time and space allowed us to dwell upon
this theme, but we are constrained to leave it with the expression of
our thanks to the author as a poor return for the obligation under
which he has placed us, a sentiment in which we feel sure all will
join us who may be so fortunate as to obtain a like opportunity.