The Hashish Eater

mother-countries, added to the capabilities which he possessed, as a medical man, for philosophizing upon such experience, interested me much in speaking with him. It had been his good fortune to meet with some singularly inordinate opium-eaters, who were in utter despair of recovery, and, still better, it was his blessing to effect a permanent and radical cure. In one case with which I became acquainted, the patient had reached a higher point of daily indulgence than De Quincey at his most desperate stage, and had seemingly lost all constitutional basis for restoration to work upon. Yet the restoration was effected. I owe it not less to a proper goodwill to humanity than to gratitude on the part of men to say who this physician was. Sincerely desirous of being in some way instrumental in the cure of a bondage which, if not my own, was, at least, so near akin to it that I can deeply sympathize with its oppressed, I give a name whose betrayal in these pages violates no secrecy to the public, while it may do a great good⁠—Dr. J. W. Palmer, of Roslyn, Long Island, the author-surgeon, late of the Honorable East India Company’s Service, and of “The Golden Dagon,” to which I have referred.2

Endnotes

1. The work referred to is a monograph upon Trance and human Hybernation, by Dr. James Braid, of Edinburgh, and published by John Church, Princes Street, Soho, London. Besides the copy now in my hands, through the kindness of my friend Dr. Rosa, of Watertown, I have never seen any other, although it probably exists in medical libraries in this country. Aware, at any rate, that the book is inaccessible, except by considerable painstaking, to general readers, I will state the authority upon which the phenomenon of the fakir’s interment and trance is related, in order that it may rest upon a stronger basis of proof than the testimony of an exceedingly credulous and superstitious people like the natives of Lahore.

   Sir Claude Wade, formerly of her majesty’s service, and, at the date of Dr. Braid’s writing, residing in Ryde, on the Isle of Wight, assures the doctor by letter that he was present at Lahore during the period of the fakir’s inhumation, and witnessed his disinterment. By this gentleman, Sir C. E. Tervelyan, and Captain Osborne, all that is stated of the fakir by Dr. Braid is authenticated, and, indeed, through them did the doctor obtain the materials for his narrative.

   By as strong a conjunction of testimony, therefore, as could be desired for the proof of the most startling assertion, is this recital put beyond the possibility of being an imposture. ↩

2. Among a number of articles written at various times by this author upon the subject of the narcotic fascinations, is one, published some time ago over his own signature in the New York Tribune, relative to the employment of hashish in India both as a gratification and a remedy. My knowledge of his thorough acquaintance with the habits of the ultra Oriental people, among whom he so long dwelt, together with a number of astonishing cures of the opium bane which he effected when, as I have said, all hope of restoration seemed forever gone, makes me particularly desirous to give the article of which I speak in full, as supplementary, through its specific value, to that which I have written of my own experience of hashish. Except as an antispasmodic in a very limited number of diseases, the Cannabis is known and prized very little among our practitioners, and I am persuaded that its uses are far wider and more important than has yet been imagined.

   Urged by this conviction, I have therefore transcribed the article of Dr. Palmer, and offer it here to the thoughtful attention which it deserves from all, whether professional or lay, who wish to add a most beneficial agent to their pharmacopoeia. It is entitled

   Hashish In Hydrophobia

   To the Editor of the New York Tribune:

   Sir⁠—In your journal of Friday last appeared a timely paper on hydrophobia, from Dr. Griscom, of the New York Hospital, being a report of the interesting case of Edward Bransfield, with the inevitably fatal termination. Allow me to add to the communication of Dr. Griscom another on the same subject, which may be deemed important. It is the result of medical observation in the East on the use and effects of hashish (Cannabis Indica). In thus writing for the public I shall avoid technicalities.

   The Radda and Coolee bazaars of the Black Town of Calcutta are the Borroboola-Ghas of heathendom⁠—the back slums of Budhism⁠—where the most abject of helots and a very Herod among cruel heathen are presented in the same person⁠—whither the flannel shirts and small-tooth combs of the Rev. Aminadab Sleek are sent every Friday night from Burton’s Theatre, but never reach. It is there you must go to procure your hashish fresh from the fields, and see your living subject try experiments on himself. If you have a lively case of Rabies in your compound, and carry a copy of Monte Cristo [For the benefit of those who have not read this novel of Dumas, let me say that in it quite a lively hashish vision is recorded] in your pocket, so much the better⁠—you are posted in the phenomena. You will find dirty, dreadful-looking shops, redolent of petroleum and the hubble-bubble [Indice for water-pipe], and prolific in Pariah dogs, ochre-colored urchins (which, as they flounder about on their bellies, always a shade or two lighter than the rest, oddly resemble young crocodiles), and every other living thing which should make those small-tooth combs lively in the market. And, amid these essentially Oriental surroundings, you will find a fat old gentleman, with the least possible clothing, to compromise between decency and the climate, who is either galvanic like Uriah Heep, or asleep like the Fat Boy, as you happen