The Chinese Opium Smoker : twelve illustrations : facsimiles of native drawings with a translation of the original Chinese text accompanying them and appendixes.

Date:
[between 1880 and 1889?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Chinese Opium Smoker : twelve illustrations : facsimiles of native drawings with a translation of the original Chinese text accompanying them and appendixes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    THE OPIUM APPETITE KEENER THAN THAT FOR FOOD. [Some old friend or attendant is offering him charity in his retirement. He has lost all appetite, however, for ordinary food.] If he has not been able to avoid a deficiency in his dose, It is impossible for him to repress his dull- ness and languor of spirit. He gathers up his miserable bones, for he has still left three and a half grains, And hastens to place the flickering lamp before his deluded eyes. His very vitals are crying out in pain for his repentance, Because the system has been injured by the hunger and thirst he has endured. He has lost all power over the secretions of the mouth. He desires only the smoke by his pillow, and has no leisure for the smoke of the kitchen. He is as happy as a fairy in the shadows cast by the opium-lamp. And this is the fashion in which a fast gentility comes to be displayed.