20. 10 gr. of haschisch – it was an extract obtained from Hering, of London – were taken at 4 p.m. By 5 an indescribably “queer” feeling pervaded the whole body, and the experimenter started at once for his hotel. While going along a plank walk – just one board wide – every now and then, and suddenly, the r. leg would shoot to the l., missing the plank. After observing this muscular freak a few times, the attention was centered upon locomotion, with a view of preventing a repetition of the erratic misstep. Out shot the leg again and again, defying volition and invariably going over to the l. On reaching the hotel the friend who had supplied the haschisch was sitting on the piazza with three companions, all of whom were known to the experimenter. An ordinary conversation was going on, to which we listened, and soon found ourself filled with surprise that we should have known the parties talking for so long a time, and never before have perceived how very witty they were. The desire to laugh at every remark made because it was so funny was repressed only because none of the others laughed. A sense of vague uneasiness and considerable oppression of the chest led us to call our friend aside, tell him the haschisch was taken and ask to go at once to his room. Mounting the stairs increased the chest oppression and flushed the face. After lying upon the bed a dryness in the throat led to a request for water, which our friend went to obtain. When he returned and stood by the bedside with it, he was greeted with a shout: – “Whoop! Stand from under! “What is the matter?” he inquired. The sound of his voice dispelled the illusion that the experimenter was a pump log through which a stream of hot water was playing, and threatening the friend, with a wetting. The deepening flush on our face alarmed our friend, who closed the window blinds, and advising us to go to sleep, left the room saying he would soon be back. Finding our eyes closed on his return he leaned upon one elbow on the bed beside us, and bending over said, ” Doc.” We lay quiet, opened our eyes, and exclaimed very emphatically: “Take care! You’re spilling me!” “What is the matter with you?” he replied still leaning heavily on the bed “Stupid, you will spill me!” was the answer. “You’re fooling: What’s the matter with you?” “Don’t you see I’m an inkstand, and you’ll have the ink all over the white counterpane?” “You ‘re no such thing” was the equally emphatic reply of our friend. In the person of a inkstand, we opened and shut our brass cover it had a hinge shook ourself, and both saw and felt the ink splash against our glass sides; and, angry at our friend’s incredulity, turned with our face towards the wall, and would not speak a verse with him. Then we very soon fell asleep, and did not awaken until late next m. While our illusions were very real, we were still conscious that they were silly and unreal; that is, the sense of their unreality would come in a m., or two. An oppression of the chest as if suffocation would surely supervene, was exceedingly disagreeable; and when we had fallen asleep the deeply flushed face alarmed our friend. He afterwards said the sleep was like that of one “dead drunk.” For a long while after we were annoyed and alarmed by pains about the heart: and with our present vague recollection of them we would not like to repeat that dose of haschisch. For fully two weeks after, when sitting in our office in the quiet summer afternoons, reading desultorily, we would hear most magnificent harmony, as if some master hand were playing an organ and using only the softer stops. there was this peculiarity about the hearing of the music, namely, one must be in a state of half reverie, and then the divine strains, soft and marvellously sweet, followed one another in a smoother legato than any human “fingering” ever accomplished. If one roused the attention and strained the ear as if to be sure of catching every chord – silence came at once. (S. A. JONES, N. Y. Journ. of Hom., ii, 368.)
21. a. One of our companions, Dr. -, who had traveled much in the East, and was a determined opium eater, was the first to yield to the influence of the haschisch, having taken a much larger dose than the others. He saw stars in his plate, and the firmament in his soup dish; then turning his face to the wall, talked to himself, and burst into fits of laughter, with eyes flashing, and in the highest state of glee. I felt perfectly calm until dinner was over, although the pupils of the eyes of my other friends began to sparkle strangely, and acquire a most singular turquoise tinct. The table being cleared, I (still having my senses) arranged myself comfortably with cushions on a divan to await the ecstasy. In a few m. a general lethargy overcame me. My body appeared to dissolve or become transparent. I saw the haschisch I had eaten distinctly within me, under the form of an emerald from which thousands of little sparks were omitted; my eyelashes lengthened indefinitely, twisting themselves like golden threads around little ivory wheels, which whirled about with inconceivable rapidity. Around me were figures and scrolls of all colours arabesques, and flowing forms in endless variety, which I can only compare to the variations of the kaleidoscope. I still occasionally saw my companions, but they appeared disfigured – half men, half plants; now with the pensive air of an ibis, standing upon one leg, and again as ostriches, flapping their wings and wearing so strange an appearance that I shook with laughter in my corner; and as if to join in the buffoonery of the scene, I commenced tossing up my cushions catching them as they descended and twisting them round with all the dexterity of an Indian juggler. One of the gentlemen addressed a discourse to me in Italian, which the haschisch, by its extraordinary power, delivered to me in Spanish. Questions and answers were most rational, and touched on different matters, such as the theaters and literature.
21 b. The first stage drew towards its termination. After some m. I recovered my calmness without headache, or any of the symptoms which accompany the use of wine, and feeling very much astonished at what had elapsed, when I again fell under the influence of the haschisch. The vision this time was more complicated and extraordinary. Millions of butterflies, whose wings wafted like fans, flew about in the midst of a confused kind of light. Gigantic flowers with crystal calices, enormous hollyhocks, gold and silver lilies, arose and burst into flowers around me with a crackling sound like that of bouquets of fireworks. My hearing was prodigiously developed; I could hear the sound of colour green, red, blue, and yellow sounds struck me with perfect distinctness. A glass upset, the creaking of a chair, or a word spoken, however low, vibrated and resounded like rolling thunder; my own voice appeared so loud that I durst not speak for fear of throwing down the walls or bursting like a bomb; more than 500 clocks chimed the hour with their flute like vices. Every object gave forth a note of the harmonium or Aeolian harp. I swam in an ocean of sound, wherein some passages of the “lucia” and “Barbiaere” floated like little isles of light. Never before had I bathed in such beatitude. I was so encircled by its waves, so transported from all things earthly, so lost to self that odious every present witness that I comprehended for the first time what might be the existence of elementary spirits and angels and souls released from this mortal coil. I was as a sponge in the midst of the sea; every instant was of happiness washed over me, entering and departing through the pores for I had become permeable, and even to the smallest capillary vessel my whole being was filled with the colour of the fantastic medium in which I was plunged. Sounds, perfumes, and light reached me by multitudes beams, delicate as a hair through which I heard the magnetic current pass.
21 c. According to my calculation this state must have lasted for 300 years, for the sensations succeeded each other so rapidly and potently that the real appreciation of time was impossible. When the attack was over I perceived that it had lasted 1/4 h. What is very curious in the intoxicating effect of the haschisch is, that it is not continuous; it comes and goes suddenly raises you to heaven, and places you again on earth, without any gradual transition. Like madness, it had its lucid intervals.
21 d. A third attack, the last and strangest, terminated my Oriental soiree. In this, my sight was doubled. Two images of each object were reflected on my retina and produced a complete symmetry; but soon the magic paste, being entirely digested, acted with more powers on my brain, and I became completely mad for the space of an h. All kinds of Pantagruelic dreams passed through my fancy; goatsuckers, storks, striped geese, unicorns, griffins, nightmares, all the menageries of monstrous dreams, trotted, jumped flew, or glided through the room. These wore horns terminating in foliage, webbed hands whimsical beings, with the feet of the armchair for legs, and dialplates for eyeballs, enormous noses, dancing the cachuca, mounted on chickens’ legs. For myself I imagined I was the paroquet of the Queen of Sheba, and imitated to the best of my ability, the voice and cries of that interesting bird. The visions became so grotesque that I was seized with a desire to sketch them, which I did in 5m. with inconceivable rapidity, on the backs of letters, cards, or any piece of paper on which I could lay my hands. One of them is the portrait of Dr -, as he appeared to me, seated at the piano, dressed as a Turk, with a sun painted on the back of his vest. The notes are represented escaping from the instrument in the form of guns and spirals, capriciously intertwisted. Another sketch bears this inscription: “An Animal of the Future.” It represents a living locomotive with a swan’s neck terminating in the jaws of a serpent, whence issue jets of smoke, with two monstrous paws composed of wheels and pulleys; each pair of paws has a pair of wings, and on the tail of the animal is seated the Mercury of the ancients, who is confessing himself to be conquered not withstanding his heels. Thanks to haschisch, I have painted from nature the portrait of a goblin. Even now I fancy I hear them whining and mowing at night in my old beauffet. (THEOPHILE GAUTIER, in Brierre de Boismont’s Histoire des Apparitions, &c.)
Hughes was a great writer and a scholar. He actively cooperated with Dr. T.F. Allen to compile his 'Encyclopedia' and rendered immeasurable aid to Dr. Dudgeon in translating Hahnemann's 'Materia Medica Pura' into English. In 1889 he was appointed an Editor of the 'British Homoeopathic Journal' and continued in that capacity until his demise. In 1876, Dr. Hughes was appointed as the Permanent Secretary of the Organization of the International Congress of Homoeopathy Physicians in Philadelphia. He also presided over the International Congress in London.