for two hours at once, and recurring at least twice or three times a day.
I was not much surprised at this on recollecting what I had somewhere
heard or read, that the membrane which lines the nostrils is a
prolongation of that which lines the stomach; whence, I believe, are
explained the inflammatory appearances about the nostrils of dram
drinkers. The sudden restoration of its original sensibility to the
stomach expressed itself, I suppose, in this way. It is remarkable also
that during the whole period of years through which I had taken opium I
had never once caught cold (as the phrase is), nor even the slightest
cough. But now a violent cold attacked me, and a cough soon after. In
an unfinished fragment of a letter begun about this time to--I find these
words: "You ask me to write the--Do you know Beaumont and Fletcher's play
of "Thierry and Theodore"? There you will see my case as to sleep; nor
is it much of an exaggeration in other features. I protest to you that I
have a greater influx of thoughts in one hour at present than in a whole
year under the reign of opium. It seems as though all the thoughts which
had been frozen up for a decade of years by opium had now, according to
the old fable, been thawed at once--such a multitude stream in upon me
from all quarters. Yet such is my impatience and hideous irritability
that for one which I detain and write down fifty escape me: in spite of
my weariness from suffering and want of sleep, I cannot stand still or
sit for two minutes together. 'I nunc, et versus tecum meditare
canoros.'"

At this stage of my experiment I sent to a neighbouring surgeon,
requesting that he would come over to see me. In the evening he came;
and after briefly stating the case to him, I asked this question; Whether
he did not think that the opium might have acted as a stimulus to the
digestive organs, and that the present state of suffering in the stomach,
which manifestly was the cause of the inability to sleep, might arise
from indigestion? His answer was; No; on the contrary, he thought that
the suffering was caused by digestion itself, which should naturally go
on below the consciousness, but which from the unnatural state of the
stomach, vitiated by so long a use of opium, was become distinctly
perceptible. This opinion was plausible; and the unintermitting nature
of the suffering disposes me to think that it was true, for if it had
been any mere _irregular_ affection of the