Drug Abuse

Dr. Robinson's experiments with hashish were performed on his friends under informal circumstances, usually at home. Though they are humorous and anecdotal, they nevertheless contain vivid descriptions of the psychological reactions of relatively normal people who were taking hashish for the first time.

Idiosyncrasy may not be the star performer, but it certainly plays an important role in the therapeutic drama. No drug in the entire materia medica is capable of producing such a diversity of effects as Cannabis indica. "Of the actions of hashish," writes Alfred Still& "many and various descriptions have been given which differ so widely among themselves that they would scarcely be supposed to apply to the same agent, had we not every day a no less remarkable instance of the same kind before us in the case of alcohol. As the latter enlivens or saddens, excites or depresses, fills with tenderness, or urges to brutality, imparts vigor and activity, or nauseates and weakens, so does the former give rise to even a still greater variety of phenomena, according to the natural disposition of the person, his existing state of mind, the quantity of the drug and the combinations in which it is taken."

Cannabis is certainly the coquette of drugdom. It is because of the unending variety of its action that the writer experimented with hashish and a few of the cases are here reported:

Experiments with Mr. A.

Mr. A. took 25 minims of the fluid extract of Cannabis indica (U.S.P.) in the presence of some ladies. An hour passed without results. A second hour followed without any noticeable result. The third hour promised to be equally fruitless, and as it was already late in the evening, the ladies said good-by. No sooner did they leave the room than the characteristic hashish-laugh rang out. The hemp was doing its work. In a shrill voice Mr. A. was exclaiming: "What foo-oolish people, what foo-oo-ool-ish people to leave just when the show is beginning." The ladies came back. And it was a show. Mr. A. made socialistic speeches, and argued warmly for the cause of Woman Suffrage. He grew most affectionate and insisted on holding a lady's hand. His face was flushed, his eyes were half closed, his abdomen seemed uneasy, but his spirit was happy. He sang, he rhymed, he declaimed, he whistled, he mimicked, he acted. He pleaded so passionately for the rights of Humanity that it seemed he was using up the resources of his system. But he was tireless. With both hands he gesticulated, and would brook no interruption.    guest attracted considerable newspaper attention. On the evening of this day, at 10 o'clock, Mr. B., a court stenographer, took 45 minims. At 11:30 the effects of the drug became apparent, and Mr. B. lost consciousness of his surroundings to such an extent that he imagined himself an inhabitant of Sir Edmund Halley's nebulous planet. He despised the earth and the dwellers thereon; he called it a miserable little fleabite, and claimed its place in the cosmos was no more important than a flea-jump. With a scornful finger he pointed downward, and said in a voice full of contempt. "That little joke down there, called the earth."

Peculiar ideas suggested themselves. For instance, he said something was "sheer nonsense," and then reasoned as follows: "Since shears are the same as scissors, instead of sheer nonsense I can say scissors nonsense." He also said, "I will give you a kick in the tickle"—and was much amused by the expression.    Pointing to an onlooker he said, "You're a fine fellow, you're the smartest man in the city, you've got the god in you, but the best thoughts you write are low compared to the things we think up here." A little later he condescended to take this individual up with him, and said, "We're up in the realm now, and we'll make money when we get down on that measly earth again; they respect Mr. B. on earth."

At all times he recognized those about him, and remained conscious of his surroundings. When the approach of dawn forced the ladies to depart, Mr. A. uttered a Rabelaisian jest, and immediately exclaimed triumphantly, "I wouldn't have said that if the ladies were here for a million dollars." Someone yawned deeply, and being displeased by the unexpected appearance of a gaping orifice, Mr. A. melodramatically gave utterance to this Gorky-like phrase: "From the depths of dirtiness and despair there rose a sickly odorous yawn"—and instantly he remarked that the first portion of this sentence was alliterative! Note that consciousness and intoxication can exist in the same brain simultaneously. The next day he remembered all that occurred, was in excellent spirits, laughed much and easily, and felt himself above the petty things of this world.    He imitated how Magistrate Butts calls a prisoner to the bar. "Butts," he explained, "is the best of them. Butts—Butts —cigarette-butts." If this irreverent line fell beneath the dignified eyes of His Honor, instead of rebuking his devoted stenographer for contempt of court, it is hoped he recalled that under the influence of narcotics men are mentally irresponsible.

Experiment with Mr. B.   

On May 19, 1910, this world was excited over the visit of Halley's comet. It is pleasant to remember that the celestial guest attracted considerable newspaper attention. On the eyeling of this day, at 10 o'clock, Mr. B., a court stenographer, ook 45 minims. At 11:30 the effects of the drug became pparent, and Mr. B. lost consciousness of his surroundings o such an extent that he imagined himself an inhabitant of Pir Edmund Halley's nebulous planet. He despised the earth .nd the dwellers thereon; he called it a miserable little fleapite, and claimed its place in the cosmos was no more important than a flea-jump. With a scornful finger he pointed lownward, and said in a voice full of contempt. "That little oke down there, called the earth."

Pointing to an onlooker he said, "You're a fine fellow, rou're the smartest man in the city, you've got the god in fou, but the best thoughts you write are low compared to he things we think up here." A little later he condescended o take this individual up with him, and said, "We're up in he realm now, and we'll make money when we get down on hat measly earth again; they respect Mr. B. on earth."

He imitated how Magistrate Butts calls a prisoner to the Par. "Butts," he explained, "is the best of them. Butts—Butts —cigarette-butts." If this irreverent line fell beneath the digiffled eyes of His Honor, instead of rebuking his devoted tenographer for contempt of court, it is hoped he recalled hat under the influence of narcotics men are mentally iresponsible.

By this time Mr. B.'s vanity was enormous. "God, Mark Twain and I are chums," he remarked casually. "God is wise, and I am wise. And to think that people dictate to me!"

He imagined he had material for a great book. "I'm giving you the thoughts; slap them down, we'll make a fortune and go whacks. We'll make a million. I'll get half and you'll get half. With half a million we'll take it easy for a while on this measly earth. We'll live till a hundred and two, and then we'll skedaddle didoo. At one hundred and two it will be said of Mr. B. that he shuffled off this mortal coil. We'll skip into the great idea—hooray! hooray! Take down everything that is significant—with an accent on the cant—Immanuel Kant was a wise man, and I'm a wise man; I am wise, because I'm wise." In spite of all the gabble concerning the volume that was to bring fame and fortune, not even one line was dictated by the inspired author. In fact he never got beyond the title: "Wise is God; God is Wise."

Later came a variation in the form of a hissing sound which was meant to be an imitation of the whizzing of Halley's comet; there was a wild swinging of the sheets as a welcome to the President; some hashish-laughter, and the utterance of this original epigram: Shakespeare, seltzerbeer, be cheerful.

A little later all variations ceased, for the subject became the victim of a fixed idea. He became thoroughly imbued with the great idea that the right attitude to preserve toward life is to take all things on earth as a joke. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times he repeated: "The idea of the great idea, the idea of the great idea, the idea of the great idea." No question could steer him out of this track. "Who's up on this comet? Any pretty girls there?" he was asked. "The great idea is up there," was the answer.

"Where would you fall if you fell off the comet?" "I'd fall into the great idea."
"What do you do when you want to eat and have no money?" "You have to get the idea."
"When will you get married?"
"When I get the idea."

' Midnight came, and he was still talking about his great idea. At one o'clock everyone was bored. "If you don't talk about anything else except the idea, we'll have to quit," he was warned.

"Yes," he replied, "we'll all quit, we'll all be wrapped up in the great idea." He took out his handkerchief to blow his nose, remarking, "The idea of my nose." A spectator approached him. "Don't interfere," he cried, "I'm off with the great idea." The spectators began to descend the stairs. When halfway down they stopped to listen. Mr. B. was still a monomaniac. As he was still harping on the idea of the great idea, it was time to go to bed.

In the morning his countenance was ashen, which formed a marked contrast to its extreme flushed appearance the evening before. He should have slept longer, but the thought of the duties to be performed for Judge Butts made it necessary to arouse him. The human touch may have cast him down from the glorious Halley's comet to the little flea-bite of an earth, besides jarring the idea of the great idea, but instead of manifesting anger, he smiled and extended his hand cordially, as if he had been absent for a long time. The effects of the drug had not entirely disappeared, and his friends at work thought him drunk, and asked with whom he had been out all night. Mr. B. was in first-class spirits, he bubbled over with idealism, and felt a contempt for all commercial transactions. He claimed he was the American Bernard Shaw, and looked upon the universe as a joke of the gods. While adding some figures of considerable importance—as salaries depended upon the results—a superintendent passed. Mr. B. pointed to the column that needed balancing, and asked, "This is all a joke, isn't it?" Not appreciating the etiology of the query, the superintendent nodded and passed on.

Experiment with Mr. C.

One midnight, while preparing to retire, it occurred to Mr. C. that this was a good time for him to try hashish. As he received no discouragement, 30 minims were forthwith swallowed, with the result that he had an unusual night. It must be remarked that over the bed on which he lay hangs a portrait of Ralph Waldo Emerson. For an hour and a quarter he discussed decadent poetry, and Marx's influence on the revolutionary youth of Russia. The conversation was interrupted by the hashish-laugh.

It had begun: the flood of laughter was loose, the deluge of mirth poured forth, the cascade of cachinnation rushed on till it swelled into a torrent of humor while the waves of snickering and tittering mingled with the freshets of hilarity and jollity till the whole flowed into a marvelous Niagara of merriment. What a pity the audience was so small! What a shame the old humorists could not be present! How the belly of Aristophanes would have thundered a loud papapappax, how Scarron would have grinned, how Sydney Smith would have enjoyed, how Tom Moore would have held his aching sides, how Rabelais would have raised the rafters with his loud ho-ho-hos! Mr. C. was a Leyden-jar of laughter, charged to the limit.

"I feel a satisfaction," he says, "in seeing Emerson's picture, as I always felt like laughing at him." Rolls on the bed and laughs uncontrollably. "It makes my face tired," he explains. In reply to a question, he answers that he enjoys laughing. Begins to expound something, but is stopped by a laughing fit. Says he would like to have his photo taken now, and then laughs immoderately. Remarks that it doesn't seem so much like laughing as like letting wind out of a bag. Says it is worthwhile staying up to see such a show. Giggles terrifically. "Open the window, as I am using up all the air." Laughs loud and long. Strangely enough his laughter begins to sound exactly like that of a stage Negro. He recognizes this and says: "I'se laughin' now jes' like a colored man." He is extraordinarily comical. From top to bottom his body is shaking with laughter. He twirls his arms, kicks his feet, and exemplifies Milton's "light, fantastic toe."

"I feel as if any way I put my leg I have to keep it. If I stuck it in the air and kept it there—wouldn't that be funny?" Loud laughter. Imitates the music of a military band. His eyes glisten with pleasure, his whole countenance is beaming, and he seems infinitely delighted with himself. "Forward march!" he exclaims. He plays a fife and beats a drum: Boom! Boom! Boom! Says sternly, "I don't want this band to play a patriotic air, not even in my sleep.    dramatically. Laughter leaps from his insides as if it were a geyser spouting up, and rushes from his lips as if it were a cataract bounding down a boulder.   

"Ladies and gentlemen, I tell you a story. You think I'm a fool, don't you?" Laughter. "This reminds me of a story." Laughter. "0 what a fool am I!" Laughter. "I'm going to tell that story," he says determinedly. Makes several attempts, but it is a difficult feat, on account of the frequent outbursts of laughter, and because it is next to impossible for him to concentrate his thoughts. At last he gets this out: "A man said he hadn't laughed so much since his mother-in-law died. Oh, how funny!    He theorizes about egoism and Max Stirner, but it is difficult to jot down the reflection in its entirety. He says his auditor has no sense of humor to sit there taking notes, instead of joining him in laughing.   

"Mr. C.: Imitation of laughter. Pretty good, eh?" Makes a speech, imitates the gestures, and bows as politely as it is possible for one who is stretched out in bed.    "Of course you understand why I am laughing. But your old cook—if she hears me, she'll send for the police.   
"This would be a good dope to try on a fellow who is accused of having no sense of humor. Oh, I'm getting funnier every minute.    "It's too bad that when I'm having such a good time, I should be troubled by a dry taste in the mouth. It's another evidence that the world was created by a lunatic. There is always some little thing that interferes."   

"Emerson, 0 you, you were a kid once, too, weren't you? I don't believe you ever were. If I had a rotten egg I'd throw it at you.   

"There's a blue phosphorescent light in your face . . .  

"I'd rather laugh than vomit any day." Strikes the bowl which was placed near him in case the cannabis produced emesis. "But I'm not a dog and I'll not return to my vomit. That Biblical dog was a fool.  

"I've been doing all sorts of laughter. Couldn't you have a system of prosody, and divide it off into feet like poetry, and have a Laughing Poet whose contributions would be accepted by the comic papers?" Whistles and sings and drums rhythmically with fingertips on the bowl.    He is asked to tell the time. He gazes intently at the clock, and says, "I want to get it exactly on the fraction of a second. But it changes so quickly, I can't." Gives it up in disgust.   

When one of his statements is confirmed, he says, "Don't be butting in, this is my show." Points his finger and laughs. Sensations must be very acute, for while hearing someone clear his throat to say something, but before uttering anything, he exclaims: "There you go, butting in again. But don't be afraid, I'm not getting pugnacious; it all ends in laughter." But for a moment he does become quarrelsome.    Claims a heavy feeling is creeping over him, and wonders if it is due to increased blood-pressure. "But what am I beginning to talk serious for? I could keep on laughing for a couple of weeks, except that I don't want to keep you up.   

"I had a good thought, but I don't know what's best: to stick to the thought, or stick to the laughter?    "If Spencer had been more of a sport and had taken some of the stuff, he would have had material for his essay 'The Physiology of Laughter.'" To see a man drugged with hashish quoting the profoundest of synthetic philosophers is too much for the gravity of his auditor, and for a moment he screams with laughter.   

"If Chauncey Depew would be wrecked in the New York Central, wouldn't that be funny? Would it be poetic justice? No, it would be the justice of laughter. Oh, it would be the laughter of the gods!" He raises himself and swings his arm dramatically. Laughter leaps from his insides as if it were a geyser spouting up, and rushes from his lips as if it were a cataract bounding down a boulder.

He theorizes about egoism and Max Stirner, but it is difficult to jot down the reflection in its entirety. He says his auditor has no sense of humor to sit there taking notes, instead of joining him in laughing.

"Of course you understand why I am laughing. But your old cook—if she hears me, she'll send for the police.

"It's too bad that when I'm having such a good time, I should be troubled by a dry taste in the mouth. It's another evidence that the world was created by a lunatic. There is always some little thing that interferes."

Talks sensibly awhile, and then says impatiently: "I want to stop all this talking, and get to laughing again. I'm not complaining about the effects from hashish, because I consider it worth everything.

"Oh, tell me, pretty maiden, why can't a little canary bird whistle a symphony, for instance, Tschaikowsky's Le Pathétique?" Whistles, waves his hand fantastically. "As little as I know about music, not having been gifted by Nature in that direction"—twists his arms in a grotesque manner—"I'm able to get a bunch out of Tschaikowsky. I don't mean Comrade Tschaikowsky, the revolutionist in Russia, I mean Peter Ilich Tschaikowsky. The itch of that Ilich—it seems like a personal ailment, it sounds insulting."

Throws a piece of paper, but says, "Don't be afraid, I'll break no bones."

He is asked to tell the time. He gazes intently at the clock, and says, "I want to get it exactly on the fraction of a second. But it changes so quickly, I can't." Gives it up in disgust.

Claims a heavy feeling is creeping over him, and wonders if it is due to increased blood-pressure. "But what am I beginning to talk serious for? I could keep on laughing for a couple of weeks, except that I don't want to keep you up.

"If Spencer had been more of a sport and had taken some of the stuff, he would have had material for his essay 'The Physiology of Laughter.'" To see a man drugged with hashish quoting the profoundest of synthetic philosophers is too much for the gravity of his auditor, and for a moment he screams with laughter.

"Ah, I'm beginning to get light again. It's much nicer to be light and delicate. To be a filmy butterfly, and float in fancy"—his face assumes an expression of poetic beauty, and he speculates whether man should like a life of beauty or of duty.

"Oh, I'm willing to laugh. . . ." Throws off the blankets and cries, "Throw off the bonds of all existence!"

He is asked what day it is. "I hope," says he, with a melodramatic wave of the hand. "I will express the modest hope, that in accordance to my wishes, and in conformity to my desires, it is Sunday night! Sunday night! Sunday night!" Sits up, looks roguish, and laughs. "I feel a metalliferous touch within me. I'd rather have a cramp in my leg than in my brain. Some people would call this a brain-cramp, wouldn't they?" Laughs and kicks up his legs.

"If you got erotic while laughing, wouldn't it be blasphemy? Worse than laughing in church.

"Have no illusions of death yet. I am still in a position to laugh death in the face, to laugh death in the face, to laugh .. ." —and he proves it. He claps his hands together merrily.

Has a lucid moment, looks at the clock, and says simply and correctly, "10 to 3."

Imitates a Frenchman most admirably, accent, gestures, and so forth.

The door opens, and an inmate—who has found it impossible to sleep with a roaring volcano in the house—enters. Mr. C. is requested to repeat his reflections about Chauncey Depew and the New York Central. Mr. C. is highly pleased, and gazes over the story with intense zest. He enlarges it, and claims Depew has got Elbert Hubbard beat as a hypocrite. He says all who believe Depew deserves to be killed should signify it by saying Aye, and then he himself, as if he were a whole assembly, shouts out, Aye! Aye! Aye! "The Ayes have it," he announces with the air of a man who has just won an important victory. His visitors laugh heartily. There is- no limit to Mr. C.'s happiness. "That's right," he says, "it's good, take it down, old man."

He cannot bear a moment's abstinence from laughter. "Cast aside all irrelevant hypotheses, and get to the laughing. I proclaim the supremacy of the laugh, laughter inextinguishable, laughter eternal, the divine laughter of the gods."

His second visitor leaves the room. "Everything has a comic element if you look at it right. It seemed to me that he went down into the cellar because he couldn't sleep on account of all my foolishness." He wallows in amusement, but at the same time expresses regret that he is preventing us from sleeping, and says next time he will take hashish in the daytime.

The second visitor re-enters, and desires to feel his pulse. At first Mr. C. objects vehemently to being touched, but then smiles the sweetness of smiles, and with the demeanor of a martyred Bruno marching to the stake, stretches forth his hand, saying, "In the interests of science I am willing," but after a few seconds Mr. C. pulls his hand impatiently away, and exclaims angrily, "You've been holding it half an hour.

"Come on in, the hashish is fine! You laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh like an imbecile. Who can laugh in more ways than me? Not any fellow that I can see."

Begins to philosophize about savages, but loses the thread of his thoughts. He is reminded what he was talking about; he thinks a moment; taps his forehead significantly, and says, "There was a laugh there before, and now I've lost it.

"Every tick of the clock is another instant that you're wasting time over all this foolishness.

"Laughter is indisputable and for its own sake. I proclaim the laugh for the laugh's sake." The English tongue is insufficient for him; he coins words of his own: "Laughfinity!" he shouts. "Laughinosity!" he screams. "The whole world is a blooming joke.

"Which is best," he says innocently, "the Laughing Goddess, or the Goddess of Laughter?" "The Laughing Goddess," is the answer. Exultation shines through the dilated pupils of the questioner, as he responds, "I knew I would catch you. The Laughing Goddess reminds you by the association of ideas of the laughing hyena, and then instead of being the goddess presiding over the divine function of laughter, she becomes a laughing stock."

He is asked something about figures. "Figures," he answers, "are intellectually beneath me. In short, I would never be a great mathematician. Yet I appreciate the metaphysics of mathematics. I adore, I prostrate myself before mathematics as long as there are no figures in it." Hearing laughter, he explains, "Yet this isn't so foolish as it seems. Up to a certain point in geometry there are no figures.

"I would have talked more sensibly if Emerson had not been there." Bangs his legs against the edge of the bed; be is asked if he hurt himself. "Not on a material plane; it was a psychic jar of which you cannot conceive."

Speaks in a declamatory tone: "I am all the time on the border-line between Science and Folly. Which god shall ye follow, young man?"

He is told he can stop laughing if he wishes. "No, sir," comes the emphatic response, "not if you lived in my world. It is a categorical imperative in the world of hashish: Thou shalt laugh."

It is already four o'clock in the morning. The spectator is loath to leave this frolicsome dynamo of blithesomeness, this continuous current of good cheer, this generator of joyousness, but there is work to be done in the world, for which sleep is necessary, so with a last look at his Mirthful Majesty, he is left alone in his glory and his giggles.

Four hours later, the intellectual merry-andrew who criticizes the Concord Transcendentalist and juggles philosophic conceptions even under the effects of dope is motionless. Lassitude has usurped the throne of laughter.

Experiment with Mr. C. (Subject's Report)

Mr. C. has written the following memorandum of the subjective features of his experience:

The first symptom which told me that the drug was beginning to take effect was a feeling of extreme lightness. I seemed to be hollowing out inside, in some magical manner, until I became a mere shell, ready to float away into space. This was soon succeeded, in one of the breathless intervals of my prodigious laughter, by a diametrically opposite sensation of extreme solidity and leaden weight. It seemed to me that I had changed into metal of some sort. There was a metallic taste in my mouth; in some inexplicable way the surfaces of my body seemed to communicate to my consciousness a metalliferous feeling; and I imagined that if struck I would give forth a metallic ring. This heavy and metallic feeling traveled rapidly upwards from the feet to the chest, where it stopped, leaving my head free for the issuance of the storms of laughter. Most of the time my arms and legs seemed to be so leaden that it required Herculean effort to move them, but under any special stimulus, such as the entrance of a third person, the vagrant conception of a new idea, or an unusually hearty fit of laughing, this feeling of unlif table heaviness in the limbs and torso would be forgotten and I would move freely, waving my arms with great vigor and enthusiasm.

Throughout the experiment I experienced a peculiar double consciousness. I was perfectly aware that my laughter, etc., was the result of having taken the drug, yet I was powerless to stop it, nor did I care to do so, for I enjoyed it as thoroughly as if it had arisen from natural causes. In the same way the extension of the sense of time induced by the drug was in itself indubitable and as cogent as any normal evidence of the senses, yet I remained able to convince myself at any moment by reflection that my sense of time was fallacious. I divided these impressions into hashish-time and real time. But in their alterations, so rapid as to seem simultaneous, both these standards of time seemed equally valid. For instance, once or twice when my friend spoke of something I had said a second before, I was impatient and replied: "What do you want to go back to that for? That was a long time ago. What's the use of going back into the past?" At the next moment, however, I would recognize, purely as a matter of logic, that he was replying to the sentence before the last that I had uttered, and would thus realize that the remark to which he referred was separated from the present only by a moment's interval. I did not, however, at any time on this occasion, attain the state sometimes reached in the second stage of hashish intoxication in which mere time disappears in an eternity wherein ages rush by like ephemera; nor did I experience any magnification of the sense of space, my experiences in regard to such extensions being confined to an intermittent multiplication of the sense of time.

When my laughter began it seemed for an instant to be mechanical, as if produced by some external power which forced air in and out of my lungs; it seemed for an instant to proceed from the body rather than from the mind; to be, in its inception, merely physical laughter without a corresponding psychic state of amusement. But this was only momentary. After the first few moments I enjoyed laughing immensely. I felt an inclination to joke as well as to laugh, and I remember saying: "I am going to have some reason for this laughing, so I will tell a story; if I have to laugh anyway, I'm going to supply good reasons for doing so, as it would be idiotic to laugh about nothing." I thereupon proceeded to relate an anecdote. Although I knew that my condition was the result of the drug, I was nevertheless filled with a genuine sense of profound hilarity, an eager desire to impart similar merriment to others, and a feeling of immense geniality and mirth, accompanied by sentiments of the most expansive good-will.

Against the effects of the drug, much as I enjoyed and yielded to it, there was opposed a preconceived intention. I had determined to tell my friend Victor Robinson, who was taking notes of my condition, just how I felt; had determined to supply as much data as possible in regard to my sensations. The result was that I repeatedly summoned all the rational energy that remained to me, and fought desperately to express the thoughts that came to me, whether ridiculous or analytical. Sometimes when I felt myself slipping away again into laughter or dreaminess I summoned all my strength to say what I had in mind, and would lose the thread of my thought and could not remember what I wanted to say, but would return to it again and again with the utmost determination and tenacity until I succeeded in saying what I wished to—sometimes an observation about my sensations, often only a jest about my condition. I believe that this acted as a great resistant to the effect of the drug. The energy of the drug was dissipated, I think, in overcoming my will to observe and analyze my sensations, and it was probably for this reason that I did not pass very far on this occasion into the second stage in which laughter gives place to grandiose visions and charming hallucinations.

After my friend turned out the light and left the room, my laughter gradually subsided into a few gurgles of ineffable mirth and benevolence, and after a period of the amorous visions sometimes induced by this philtre from the land of harems, I fell into a sound sleep after my three hours of continuous and exhausting laughter.

I awoke next morning after seven hours' sleep, with a ravenous appetite, which I think was probably as much due to the great expenditure of energy in laughing as to any direct effect of the drug itself. I was also very thirsty and my skin was parched and burning. Although I immediately dressed and went down to breakfast, I felt very drowsy and disinclined to physical exertion or mental concentration. And while no longer given to causeless laughter, I felt a lingering merriment and was easily moved to chuckling. I slept several hours in the afternoon and after dinner I slept all evening, awaking at 11 P.M., when I arose feeling very much refreshed and entirely normal, and went out to get another meal,, being still hungry. I should say that the immediate after-effect, the reaction from the stimulation of hashish, is not much greater, except for the drowsiness, than that following the common or beer garden variety of intoxication. My memory of what I said and did while under the hashish was complete and accurate.

Experiment of Dr. X. (Subject's Report)

On March 4, 1910, I came home, feeling very tired. I found that some Cannabis indica which I had expected had arrived. After supper, while finishing up an article, I began to debate with myself whether I should join the hashish-eaters that night. The argument ended in my taking 20 minims at 9 o'clock. I was alone in the room, and no one was aware that I had yielded to temptation. An hour later I wrote in my memoranda book: Absolutely no effect. At 10:30, I completed my article, and entered this note: No effect at all from the hemp. By this time I was exhausted, and being convinced that the hashish would not act, I went to bed in disappointment. I fell asleep immediately.

I hear music. There is something strange about this music. I have not heard such music before. The anthem is far away, but in its very faintness there is a lure. In the soft surge and swell of the minor notes there breathes a harmony that ravishes the sense of sound. A resonant organ, with a stop of sapphire and a diapason of opal, diffuses endless octaves from star to star. All the moonbeams form strings to vibrate the perfect pitch, and this entrancing unison is poured into my enchanted ears. Under such a spell, who can remain in a bed? The magic of that melody bewitches my soul. I begin to rise horizontally from my couch. No walls impede by progress, and I float into the outside air. Sweeter and sweeter grows the music; it bears me higher and higher, and I float in tune with the infinite—under the turquoise heavens where globules of mercury are glittering.

I become an unhindered wanderer through unending space. No airship can go here, I say. I am astonished at the vastness of Infinity. I always knew it was large, I argue, but I never dreamed it was as huge as this. desire to know how fast I am floating through the air, and I calculate that it must be about a billion miles a second.

I am transported to wonderland. I walk in streets where gold is dirt, and I have no desire to gather it. I wonder whether it is worthwhile to explore the canals of Mars, or rock myself on the rings of Saturn, but before I can decide, a thousand other fancies enter my excited brain.

I wish to see if I can concentrate my mind sufficiently to recite something, and I succeed in correctly quoting this stanza from a favorite poem which I am perpetually re-reading:

Come into the garden, Maud,
For the black bat, night, has flown, Come into the garden, Maud,
I am here at the gate alone;
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, And the musk of the rose is blown.

It occurs to me that it is high honor for Tennyson to have his poetry quoted in Heaven.

I turn, I twist, I twirl. I melt, I fade, I dissolve. No diaphanous cloud is so light and airy as I. I admire the ease with which I float. My gracefulness fills me with delight. My body is not subject to the law of gravitation. I sail dreamily along, lost in exquisite intoxication.

New scenes of wonder continually unravel themselves before my astonished eyes. I say to myself that if I could only record one-thousandth of the ideas which come to me every second, I would be considered a greater poet than Milton.

I am on the top of a high mountain-peak. I am alone—only the romantic night envelops me. From a distant valley I hear the gentle tinkling of cowbells. I float downwards, and find immense fields in which peacocks' tails are growing. They wave slowly, to better exhibit their dazzling ocelli, and I revel in the gorgeous colors. I pass over mountains and I sail over seas. I am the monarch of the air.

I hear the songs of women. Thousands of maidens pass near me; they bend their bodies in the most charming curves, and scatter beautiful flowers in my fragrant path. Some faces are strange, some I knew on earth, but all are lovely. They smile, and sing and dance. Their bare feet glorify the firmament. It is more than flesh can stand. I grow sensual unto satyriasis. The aphrodisiac effect is astonishing in its intensity. I enjoy all the women of the world. I pursue countless maidens through the confines of Heaven. A delicious warmth suffuses my whole body. Hot and blissful I float through the universe, consumed with a resistless passion. And in the midst of this unexampled and unexpected orgy, I think .of the case reported by the German Dr. Reidel, about a drug-clerk who took a huge dose of hashish to enjoy voluptuous visions, but who heard not even the rustle of Aphrodite's garment, and I laugh at him in scorn and derision.

I sigh deeply, open my eyes, and find myself sitting with one foot in bed, and the other on my desk. I am bathed in warm sweat, which is pleasant. But my head aches, and there is a feeling in my stomach which I recognize and detest. It is nausea. I pull the basket near me, and await the inevitable result. At the same time I feel like begging for mercy, for I have traveled so far and so long, and I am tired beyond limit and I need a rest. The fatal moment approaches, and I lower my head for the easier deposition of the rising burden. And my head seems monstrously huge, and weighted with lead. At last the deed is done, and I lean back on the pillow.

I hear my sister come home from the opera. I wish to call her. My sister's name is Margaret; I try to say it, but I cannot. The effort is too much. I sigh in despair. It occurs to me that I may achieve better results if I compromise on Marge, as this contains one syllable instead of three. Again I am defeated. I am too weary to exert myself to any extent, but I am determined. I make up my mind to collect all my strength, and call out: Marge. The result is a fizzle. No sound issues from my lips.

My lips do not move. I give it up. My head falls on my breast, utterly exhausted and devoid of all energy.

Again my brain teems. Again I hear that high and heavenly harmony, again I float to the outposts of the universe and beyond, again I see the dancing maidens with their soft yielding bodies, white and warm. I am excited unto ecstasy. I feel myself a brother to the Oriental, for the same drug which gives him joy is now acting on me. I am conscious all the time, and I say to myself in a knowing way with a suspicion of a smile: All these visions because of 20 minims of Cannabis indica. My only regret is that the trances are ceaseless. I wish respite, but for answer I find myself floating over an immense ocean. Then the vision grows so wond'rous that body and soul I give myself up to it, and I taste the fabled joys of Paradise. Ah, what this night is worth!

The music fades, the beauteous girls are gone, and I float no more. But the black rubber covering of my typewriter glows like a chunk of yellow phosphorus. By one door stands a skeleton with a luminous abdomen who brandishes a wooden sword. By the other door a little red devil keeps guard. I open my eyes wide, I close them tight, but these spectres will not vanish. I know they are not real, I know I see them because I took hashish, but they annoy me nevertheless. I become uncomfortable, even frightened. I make a superhuman effort, and succeed in getting up and lighting the gas. It is two o'clock. Everything is the way it should be, except that in the basket I notice the remains of an orange—somewhat the worse for wear.

I feel relieved, and fall asleep. Something is handling me, and I start in fright. I open my eyes and see my father. He has returned from a meeting at the Academy of Medicine and, surprised at seeing a light in my room at such a time, has entered. He surmises what I have done, and is anxious to know what quantity I have taken. I should have answered, with a wink, quantum sufficit; but I have no inclination for conversation; on hearing the question repeated, I answer, "Twenty minims." He tells me I look as pale as a ghost, and brings me a glass of water. I drink it, become quite normal, and thus ends the most wonderful night of my entire existence.

In the morning my capacity for happiness is considerably increased. I have an excellent appetite, the coffee I sip is nectar, and the white bread, ambrosia. I take my camera, and walk to Central Park. It is a glorious day. Everyone I meet is idealized. The lake never looked so placid before. I enter the hothouses, and a gaudy-colored insect buzzing among the lovely flowers fills me with joy. I am too languid to take any pictures; to set the focus, to use the proper stop, to locate the image, to press the bulb—all these seem Herculean feats which I dare not even attempt. But I walk and walk, without apparent effort, and my mind eagerly dwells on the brilliant pageantry of the night before. I do not wish to forget my frenzied nocturnal revelry upon the vast dome of the broad blue heavens. I wish to remember forever the floating, the mercury-globules, the peacock-feathers, the colors, the music, the women. In memory I enjoy the carnival again.

"For the brave Meiamoun," writes Théophile Gautier, "Cleopatra danced; she was apparelled in a robe of green, open at either side; castanets were attached to her alabaster hands. . . . Poised on the pink tips of her little feet, she approached swiftly to graze his forehead with a kiss; then she recommenced her wond'rous art, and flitted around him, now backward-leaning, with head reversed, eyes half-closed, arms lifelessly relaxed, locks uncurled and loose-hanging like a bacchante of Mount Menelaus; now again active, animated, laughing, fluttering, more tireless and capricious in her movements than the pilfering bee. Heart-consuming love, sensual pleasure, burning passion, youth inexhaustible and ever-fresh, the promise of bliss to come—she expressed all. . . . The modest stars had ceased to contemplate the scene; their golden eyes could not endure such a spectacle; the heaven itself was blotted out, and a dome of flaming vapor covered the hall."

But for me a thousand Cleopatras caroused—and did not present me a vase of poison to drain at a draught. Again I repeated to myself: "And all these charming miracles because of 20 minims of Fluidextractum Cannabis Indicae, U.S.P."

By the afternoon I had so far recovered as to be able to concentrate my mind on technical studies. I will not attempt to interpret my visions psychologically, but I wish to refer to one aspect. Spencer, in Principle of Psychology, mentions hashish as possessing the power of reviving ideas. I found this to be the case. I spoke about airships because there had been a discussion about them at supper; I quoted from Tennyson's "Maud" because I had been rereading it; I saw mercury-globules in the heavens because that same day I had worked with mercury in preparing mercurial plaster; and I saw the peacock tails because a couple of days previous I had been at the Museum of Natural History and had closely observed a magnificent specimen. I cannot account for the women in my visions.

All poets—with the possible exception of Margaret Sangster—have celebrated Alcohol, while Rudyard Kipling has gone so far as to solemnize delirium tremens; B. V. has glorified Nicotine; De Quincey has immortalized Opium; Murger is full of praise for Caffeine; Dumas in Monte Cristo has apotheosized Hasheesh, Gautier has vivified it in Club des Hachichins, Baudelaire has panegyrized it in Paradis artificiels, but as few American pêns have done so, I have taken it upon myself to write a sonnet to the most interesting plant that blooms:

Near Punjab and Pab, in Sutlej and Sind, Where the cobras-di-capello abound, Where the poppy, palm and the tamarind,
Where cummin and ginger festoon the ground—And the capsicum fields are all abloom
From the hills above to the vales below, Entrancing the air with a rich perfume, There, too, does the greenish Cannabis grow: Inflaming the blood with the living fire,
Till the burning joys like the eagles rise, And the pulses throb with a strange desire, While passion awakes with a wild surprise: 0 to eat that drug, and to dream all day, Of the maids that live by the Bengal Bay!

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