On getting home and taking an inventory of myself, I found that I was but a skeleton. Sores and scars soon covered me from head to foot. Decent living was driving the corruption engendered by prison life out of my system. So much of this stuff appeared on my skin, that I cannot but think it was a very fortunate thing for me that it did come out in this way; for had it lingered in me, and waited some slower process, it seems to me I surely must have died. I began to have natural sleep at night, also. This is a feature in my experience to which I should have referred before. I cannot remember that I had any sleep at Wilmington, unless when we first arrived. I could sleep none on the trip North, and when we got to Annapolis, I told the attending physician that I had not slept for a month,—for so it seemed to me,—and that I wanted him to give me some medicine that would induce sleep. To this he objected, averring, that being tired and having a clean body and clean clothing, I would now sleep soundly. But I did not sleep at all, and the day following I was almost distracted from the loss of much-needed sleep and rest. I so informed the doctor, and he had a draught prepared for me; this sent me into a very sweet sleep the succeeding night, and I awoke the next morning much refreshed indeed. The ensuing night was sleepless again, the physician refusing to prescribe anything for me. On the following night he did, however, and I enjoyed another night’s invigorating slumber and recuperative rest.

With what felicity of expression and justice of observation the universal Bard bodies forth the heavenly virtues of this ever-renewing well-spring of life and health:

“Innocent sleep;
Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleeve of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labor’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast.”

Since I suffered my great experience, I have had an inexpressible relish of appreciation for the peculiar sweetness, simple truth, and inspiring beauty of this rare gem of genuine poetry.

I could see that the doctor thought the medicine would be hurtful to me if taken every night, and for that reason allowed me to have it only every alternate night.

I felt that the sleep would, even with taking it, much more than counterbalance all evil effects that would likely arise from the medicine, and I determined to procure it if possible.

It was the custom of the doctor to prescribe his medicines, and leave the prescriptions with the head nurse of each ward, who would go at a certain time to the dispensary and get them filled. In cases where the same medicines were prescribed each day, the same phials were used.

The phial which had been used for me I noticed still remained after the physician had prescribed for our ward, one morning, without giving me anything, and had gone; so when the hour for going after medicine came around, I informed the head nurse that the doctor had prescribed my draught for me as a general thing; that I was to have it every night, and that he must not fail to get it for me. I startled the fellow; he looked astonished.

“Why,” said he, “I didn’t hear him say anything about it. I guess not,” etc.

“Yes, he did, though; I heard him,” I replied; “and I want you to get it without fail.”The stratagem was successful, and the duped nurse brought the medicine regularly every day, and the result was that I slept every night, owing to the kindness of the medicine, and my health began to improve from that time; and I may say I noticed no injurious consequences or effects of the medicine.

On arriving home, I told my mother of my inability to sleep. The first night on my arrival home I did not, because, arriving in the night, I could get no medicine; but the next day I spoke to my mother about the matter, as I have stated, and she procured me some medicine. This I took for a short time, when I discontinued it without any difficulty. I found that I needed it no longer.

After this, for some time, my main and only trouble was with my stomach. Although I had a good appetite, and was so hungry in my mind that I could not see victuals removed from the table, or scarcely a bone thrown away, without feeling pained at the loss; I could not eat very much, as my stomach seemed so diminutive that it would contain but a small quantity, and what I did take into it seemed to turn to lead within me, or rather into a pound of tenpenny nails, determined to cut and grind its way to the outside. That is, it did not sour; my food digested (slowly and painfully), but from some cause it hurt me continually. I gradually became able to eat more; grew somewhat fleshy, and looked well; but my stomach hurt me, nevertheless, all the time.I did not apply for a pension within a reasonable time after coming home, because my mother thought I was young, and would soon recover my health.

Alas! never was prophecy so contradicted or hope so defeated. For a year I suffered from my stomach, keeping wonderfully well up in strength. At the end of a year or more, I became afflicted with constant headache, viz., about 9 o’clock A. M., the headache would come on and continue during the day. From the time I was liberated from Southern prisons (and in fact long before I was released), up to the setting in of the daily headache, I had been occasionally afflicted with it. Now, headache became one of the most direful curses. From this time forward, for a year or more, I was on the down-hill road. My stomach was much worse than ever, and my headache became worse in proportion with my stomach. My body was very much debilitated; I suffered fearfully, wretchedly. From the ravages made on my entire physical system by constant headaches, and the terrible agonies and torments of my stomach, my mind became debilitated. In my extremity, I cried to God, and asked him why He so afflicted me! My sufferings were so intolerable and continuous, that my face became the reflected image of agony. My mother, God bless her! who could not conceive the uncommon suffering I was enduring, and imagining that I might have some trouble on my mind, begged me, in alarm, not to look so pain-stricken; that persons were noticing the appalling expression of my countenance.

The reader will please remember that I was making my own living, during all this time, as a clerk. I tried different physicians and remedies without avail. Nothing seemed to benefit me, and I quit trying. At last a physician in the town where I resided, in whom I had but little confidence, and who for six months past had been endeavoring to get my consent to allow him to treat my case, induced me to place myself under his professional care. None of the rest had benefited me, and he could but fail, and might do me some good. I would die if there were not a change soon, and I could but do this at the worst under his treatment. Besides, I wanted present relief from the most distracting pain. I was suffering daily torment and torture, with a body weak and wasted, and a constitution whose resisting power, before persistent and repeated assaults, had at last given way; my mind was become greatly impaired, and my spirits had sunk into a black midnight of despair.

“’Tis no time now to stickle over means and remedies; let him cure me who can, or let me die if I must,” I thought. Nevertheless, in going into this physician’s office, I emphatically charged him not to administer to me any opium or morphia, as I had a horror of such things.

I perceived that he was going to use, in my case, what was a new instrument in the practice there at that time, viz., the hypodermic syringe. “Oh, have no fear,” he replied, holding up at the same time a phial of clear and colorless fluid; “this is no opium or morphia; it is one of the simplest and most harmless things in the world; but it is a secret, and no one in the town knows anything about it except myself.” On this assurance, I allowed him to inject a dose into my arm. This first dose was too large, and nearly killed me or scared me to death, and I determined not to go back to him again. And I would have adhered to my determination, had he not accosted me at a hotel, about two weeks thereafter, and asked me why I had remained away; and on my telling him the reason, he entreated me to come back, saying, that as soon as he had ascertained the right dose for me, he would certainly cure me. God in heaven knows I wanted to be cured, and reasonably. I recommenced taking the injections then, and allowed him full liberty to do what he could for me.

Contemporaneously with the injections, though not by prescription from this physician, but with his approval, I commenced taking carbonate of iron.

This preparation of iron had been prescribed by another physician for one of my sisters, who was suffering from neuralgia, and with good results; so I thought it might probably have a beneficial effect in the case of my headache and the generally debilitated condition of my system. I took about one or two injections a week; sometimes, perhaps, I may have taken one or two more. The number was varied by the frequency or infrequency of the severer headaches. I did not go every day. I had headache every day, but only submitted to the injection when it manifested itself more severely than usual. The iron I took three times a day after meals. I thus particularly notice the iron, because it had considerable to do in forming an estimation of the results of this doctor’s treatment, which I made at a certain time. I continued the hypodermical treatment, taking about the same number of injections for a couple of months, when I found myself getting better, and in a much more substantial condition of health than I had been for many a long day, or even year.

I felt, indeed, better; but I observed one peculiarity in my case that was not comforting. It raised my suspicions, not having unlimited confidence in my physician. But should my suspicions turn out well founded, I argued, the great improvement in my health has justified my treatment, and I cannot see yet that I am in any danger. Let me go on a little while longer, until my health becomes permanently established, and then I will drop this doctor and his treatment. I found that the taking of my medicine had settled down into something like regularity, and when the time came around that I was restless, lacking spirit, and unable to do anything to any purpose till I had an injection.Had such not been the case, everything would have been revealed at first, and the terrible consequences averted; but, as it was, any suspicion of the effect of the medicine—that is, immediate effect or influence—had been forestalled in my mind by my having read, previous to this treatment, that there were other drugs of similar effect; but when I noticed the unmistakable evidences of the habit forming, I was troubled about it.

My fears were confirmed some time after by my coming in upon the doctor whilst he was preparing the solution, and thus detecting him. I exclaimed: “Ah ha, doctor, you have been giving me morphia.” “Yes,” he replied, “a little; but the main part was cannabis indicus” (Indian hemp). I don’t know that he ever gave me a particle of cannabis indicus, for I know that some time after, and from that period on, he did not disguise the fact that he was giving me the unadulterated sulphate of morphia. The doctor soon found he had an elephant on his hands,—saw that I was in the habit; became tired of my regular calls for hypodermical injections, and endeavored to shake me off. After giving him fully to understand his culpability in the matter, we parted.

Knowing, then, that I was simply an opium eater, I purchased my own morphia at the drug-stores, and took it per mouth instead of by a hypodermic syringe. Thus was I, as the notorious fly, invited into the parlor of the deceitful spider, and met with something like the same sad fate. Tripped up by an ignoramus who had hung about me for six months to allow him to treat my case; who had brought me medicine which I threw behind my desk, and never tasted; who had told me he had “taken a fancy to me;” who used every persuasive art within his command to get me to his office, and under his professional care, only for the purpose of giving me bare morphia by way of a syringe!—while I, well duped and deceived, gave his treatment all the credit which the iron I was taking should have received for building up my broken-down health.

His treatment in conjunction with the iron did me good; the morphia killed the pain, and the iron built me up; one might not have done without the other. I might have died but for the opium; but this fact does not exonerate this blundering and perjured empiricist from the charge of malpractice. He did my case, as he had done others before, and no doubt has done many since, and will go on doing until Divine Justice calls him to account, and sinks his abhorred countenance out of the sight of man. I soon realized that I had experienced all the good results to be obtained from the treatment, and that to go on longer would be injurious. So I endeavored to discontinue the morphia, but found myself in the fangs of a monster more terrible than the Hydra of Lake Lerna, and whose protean powers it is not man’s to know till it is too late to escape.I discovered that the power to fight and overcome great obstacles in this life, and which had always served me in my struggles theretofore, and which I relied upon then, was the very first thing destroyed by the enemy, namely, the will. Here I was, then, an opium eater. The outward effects and injurious properties of the drug soon made themselves manifest: what was I to do? Quit it, some may say; but no one well posted upon the opium habit would use those words, so hard and feelingless. A reply like this, I think, would betray more wisdom and humanity: “Your case is wellnigh hopeless; I can give you no encouragement whatever; do your utmost to release yourself from the unhappy predicament in which you have been placed; and may God help you, for I fear you will need other help beside your own.”

“What then? What rests?
Try what repentance can: what can it not?
Yet what can it, when one cannot repent?
Oh, wretched state!”