which I inhabit, which had about this time
attained its maximum, July having been, as usual, a month of incessant
rain in our most rainy part of England.

Under these reasons for doubting whether opium had any connexion with the
latter stage of my bodily wretchedness--except, indeed, as an occasional
cause, as having left the body weaker and more crazy, and thus
predisposed to any mal-influence whatever--I willingly spare my reader
all description of it; let it perish to him, and would that I could as
easily say let it perish to my own remembrances, that any future hours of
tranquillity may not be disturbed by too vivid an ideal of possible human
misery!

So much for the sequel of my experiment. As to the former stage, in
which probably lies the experiment and its application to other cases, I
must request my reader not to forget the reasons for which I have
recorded it. These were two: First, a belief that I might add some
trifle to the history of opium as a medical agent. In this I am aware
that I have not at all fulfilled my own intentions, in consequence of the
torpor of mind, pain of body, and extreme disgust to the subject which
besieged me whilst writing that part of my paper; which part being
immediately sent off to the press (distant about five degrees of
latitude), cannot be corrected or improved. But from this account,
rambling as it may be, it is evident that thus much of benefit may arise
to the persons most interested in such a history of opium, viz., to opium-
eaters in general, that it establishes, for their consolation and
encouragement, the fact that opium may be renounced, and without greater
sufferings than an ordinary resolution may support, and by a pretty rapid
course {22} of descent.

To communicate this result of my experiment was my foremost purpose.
Secondly, as a purpose collateral to this, I wished to explain how it had
become impossible for me to compose a Third Part in time to accompany
this republication; for during the time of this experiment the
proof-sheets of this reprint were sent to me from London, and such was my
inability to expand or to improve them, that I could not even bear to
read them over with attention enough to notice the press errors or to
correct any verbal inaccuracies. These were my reasons for troubling my
reader with any record, long or short, of experiments relating to so
truly base a subject as my own body; and I am earnest with the reader
that he will not