I would say to myself, "It does not hurt me, it seems to have no more effect than the cigar my friend smokes after dinner. Really I believe it is a positive benefit. It seems to keep my bowels regular, and it certainly makes me sleep soundly all night."
But after a while I found that I was using a larger quantity of chloroform than at first. I would take a two-ounce bottle half-full of the stuff to bed with me, and inhaling directly from the bottle would forget at last to cork it, and in the morning it would be empty. Sometimes I would wake after midnight, or partially wake to take another dose. I found that there was a bad taste in my mouth all the time@ keeping me in mind of chloroform. I was often nauseated in the morning, and sometimes at intervals during the day. I began to feel a longing for chloroform whenever I had a little headache, or was dispirited from any cause, and I sometimes yielded to what I already knew was a morbid craving. I began to be indifferent to the things that personally had interested me, avoided society, and became depressed in spirits. My complexion became sallow, whites of the eyes yellow, the bowels sometimes windy and unnaturally loose, skin dry and seemingly bloodless, and injuries of the skin did not heal rapidly. In winter there was a tendency to chapping, that had not before been noticed.
