ABSTRACT
Opium and Alcohol as together viewed from different stand-points appear in relations mutually approximative, or again in a more direct antagonism. Alcohol excites an action potent but fugitive; opium imparts a more sustained endurance. The alcohol family lean towards festive association and to tobacco pre-eminently; the opium-eater withdrawn to the seclusion of his solitary hauteur regards such fraternization as a mesalliance. The ratio of drunkards reformed upon the basis of total abstinence has been estimated as being one in six upon the total; the ratio of the reformed from among the devotees to opium, were it ascertainable in figures, might scarcely count one-sixth of a sixth. Opium is a spirit of evil, as treacherously beguiling as is the arch-fiend himself”. Alcohol transforms the man into a brute; opium disenthrals this same brutalized humanity from its grosser impediments and invests it with new habiliments as of a demigod.
