Choralism

[Magpie]

Here's a contemporary article about Choral Hydrate abuse (which supposedly Stephenson suffered from)

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/e1880/abuseofchloralhydrate.htm

[John Savage]

Hi Magpie,

This Choral Hydrate abuse.
Would it have got old sudden death singing do you think?

Rgds
John

[Robert Linford]

No wonder Beethoven's Chloral Symphony was so good. He was as high as a kite when he wrote it.:fish:

[How Brown]

Magpie:

Excellent find buddy....It reminded me to mention that leg (thigh) wound RDS suffered in 1868....another area of the site that I have been neglecting lately....I need a clone.

Could this have been the reason ( pain killer ) for Stephenson indulging in chloral hydrate all along and not because of a character that was experimental or from being in contact with other chloral "heads" ? In other words,he needed/used chloral to stave off the pain of getting shot in Flamborough?

For some reason at this moment....everything seems clear to me (only,I guess) about the use of chloral. Like most other drugs...even today....imbibing in drugs isn't really something one does in front of people who themselves don't imbibe.

Roots mentions him from 20 years ( exactly the time frame of 1868-1888 )...as using drugs to stave off the delerium tremens....but could it have been the other way around..and that he drank to counter the effects of the chloral hydrate and Stephenson's reputation with Roots didn't "get into" or touch upon the shooting at Flamborough in the first place?

This makes sense to me...since Stephenson states he wrote the Patristic Gospels in pain...and pain NOT from tertiary syphilis,but from the leg wound all along?

Could that shooting in Flamborough...caused his inevitable addiction to chloral hydrate....and his drinking been less profound all along....leading him to logically check himself in the London Hospital under the guise of the symptoms of neurasthenia...but in reality a way to "dry out" from the "monkey on his back"...chloral hydrate?

Good one Kev.

[John Savage]

Hi Howard,

Some good thinking there my friend.

I remember when I first read the O Donnell that the picture that came across to me was that Donston was not a well man. Chris George seems to have come to a similar conclusion in an essay which is available on Casebook.

I seem to recall something in the O Donnell where Cremers remarks about his not sleeping well, but I don't seem able to find it at the moment, but all credit to Magpie for finding that useful link.

Rgds
John

[Magpie]

Har har :ranger:

I gotta set me a posting curfew :rofl:

[How Brown]

Regarding John's comments...

"The persons who become habituated to chloral hydrate are of two or three classes, as a rule. Some have originally taken the narcotic to relieve pain, using it in the earliest application of it for a true medicinal and legitimate object, probably under medical direction. Finding that it gave relief and repose, they have continued the use of it, and at last have got so abnormally under its influence that they cannot get to sleep if they fail to resort to it..."

.........but it leads to the unhealthy states that we are now conversant with, and it rather promotes than destroys the craving for alcohol. In short, the man who takes to chloral after alcohol enlists two cravings for a single craving, and is double-shotted in the worst sense..."

This is in the "chicken or the egg" category as to which came first...his initial addiction to chloral or what Roots remembers as his use of chloral to stave off the pink elephants...

With little or no doubt,RDS drank some form of alcohol before he ever huffed a rag full of chloral....as did virtually everyone else back then.

In fact,alcohol might have had some part in the unresolved issue as to exactly what caused RDS to fall out of grace and subsequently lose his position at Customs House. Harris and one other Ripperologist have concluded without any basis...that it was due to venereal disease....a condition that has at best been assumed.

How,one may ask,would anyone other than Stephenson and his primary physician know if Stephenson ever had syphilis? This is not a condition that is easily "found out" unless the afflicted person admits to having it....and frankly,to consider that Stephenson willingly admitted to his superiors that he had syphilis is a joke...and yet another wild speculation in the concerted effort to paint a man,Stephenson,who may deserve sympathy for events which occurred in 1868...that have been distorted over time to frame him as a "sinister" character....

Some drugs will temporarily "solve" a physical problem....such as the modern drug Percocet for pain....but to "mellow out" or try to temper the total effects of such a powerful drug,such as the mighty Perk...additional drugs or drink are used in such an effort..

Anyone else?

[Magpie]

Here's some more info about Chloral, from the turn of the last century:

http://www.henriettesherbal.com/eclectic/potter-comp/chloral.html

[How Brown]

The Chloral Habit. Chloralism is a state of marked anaemia, its subjects presenting a weak, irritable, often irregular heart, deranged liver function, jaundice, bileless stools, perhaps purpura and sloughing of a finger, from decreased blood supply. Its votaries are on the border of insanity, excitable, uncontrollable in speech and action, talking in a silly manner and very volubly. Many cases of insanity result from the chloral habit.
***************************

Well...one possible reason for the behavior of Stephenson in the hospital ( fitting Davies up as the Ripper...the letters to the police... asking Stead to finance his search for the Ripper,yet still being in the hospital,which Stead knew at that time) might be his reaction to his withdrawal from the drug....and that these changes were manifested in the mini "explosion" of Ripper-related activities Stephenson created or attempted to develope.

You can't stay in a hospital for 134 days without being really sick...or recuperating from the effects of a surgery or the withdrawal therapy. Likewise,if you really have no place to go to live...and Stephenson,in my view,didn't...it helps to have a hospital with welcoming arms.

It strikes me as well that Dr.Sutton might have "fudged" on the diagnosis...and might well have recognized a drug addiction,but for some reason wrote down "neurasthenia". This "neurasthenia" might have been some all-encompassing diagnosis for afflictions which were similar in how they manifest themselves.

For example....I had lead poisoning when I was 19. Yet,the doctor's diagnosis was "blood poisoning". If I was pressed to prove that I had "lead poisioning" today....I couldn't. The doctor is dead and his records definitely stated "blood poisoning". He jabbed me with a massive dose of penicillin.....which I immediately found out that I was allergic to and had some serious issues with that acquired side-ailment. I had to take an entire month off of work ( June 1973) until I was back to normal...which is still a matter of contention.

Yet,my medicines were doled out specifically for the more serious of the two conditions,lead poison. I was tested once a week by the same doctor for the level of lead in my system until it was as negligible as it could be.

To the average Joe,each ailment is the "same"....it deals with foreign material in the blood stream...its gotta come out...and usually the same drugs or alternatives ( ArethaFranklinomycin...however you pronounce that e-mycin substitute) are issued to jettison the foreign material.

I,for one,who know a "little" about drugs:rolleyes:...can tell you that your behavior changes from the detoxification from a drug...and chloral,which I don't know about as far as using it,seems to be one drug that would result in behavior changes in a person.

When a person ceases to use methamphetamine...having used them for a long time on a daily basis...a more serious and slightly testy character pattern appears until it straightens itself out over time....but the immediate behavior changes are visible to those around the recent de-toxed person. This might have been the reason or causes for this sudden explosion of Ripper-interest in our sick journalist in the long run.