Selected Papers of William L. White www.williamwhitepapers.com Collected papers, interviews, video presentations, photos, and archival documents on the history of addiction treatment and recovery in America. Citation: White, W. (2014). Opium in America: The early story. Posted at www.williamwhitepapers.com. Opium in America: The Early Story William L. White Emeritus Senior Research Consultant Chestnut Health Systems [email protected] NOTE: The original 1,000+ page manuscript for Slaying the Dragon: The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery in America had to be cut by more than half before its first publication in 1998. This is an edited excerpt that was deleted from the original manuscript. Opium in Colonial America opium with ingredients such as wine, henbane, bone of the heart of a stag, Opium came to America early and in cinnamon, frog's sperm, and orange or many forms. There was raw prepared opium lemon juice. The alcoholic preparation of (for smoking). There was granulated opium opium that people drank was the most prepared in standard medical doses and popular (Macht, 1915). It is likely that taken by mouth, usually to treat diarrhea. Laudanum entered America on the There was powdered opium, whose fine Mayflower and continued to arrive with each granules could be sprinkled into an open succeeding ship. Many early Americans, wound to relieve pain. There was tincture of including Benjamin Franklin, were regular opium (opium suspended in alcohol). users of Laudanum (Musto, 1991). Representing these various forms of Paregoric--a mixture of opium, medicinal opium were three opium products alcohol, camphor, benzoic acid, and anise that began the history of narcotic addiction in oil--appeared in the early eighteenth century America: Laudanum, Dover’s Powder, and and was the most common product Paregoric (Maurer and Vogel, 1973). recommended for diarrhea. Its name comes Laudanum, originally in the form of an from a Greek word meaning "soothing" or opium pill and later in a liquid combination of "consoling." Paregoric was also the one of opium and alcohol, was developed by the most frequently used medicines for Paracelsus, the Swiss chemist, in the children in America, as noted in an early sixteenth century. The name itself comes advertising jingle: "Paregoric by the bottle, from the Latin, laudanum, which means emptied down the baby's throttle." "something to be praised." In Colonial Dover's Powder was an opium-based America, the term “laudanum” was used for preparation developed by Dr. Thomas Dover a number of preparations that combined of England for the treatment of gout. It williamwhitepapers.com 1 contained a concoction of opium, licorice, ipecac, and other assorted ingredients. DeQuincey and his American Dover’s Powder was used as a pain killer, Counterparts usually taken internally or applied to the skin. It became one of the most widely used elixirs Thomas DeQuincey’s Confessions of an on both sides of the Atlantic. By the late English Opium-Eater was published in 1821, eighteenth century opium was also marking the beginning of the association of available, primarily in the form of gum opium, a number of literary figures with the practice from domestic growers in the colonies. of regular opium use. Eventually the list of There are a few early reports of what Nineteenth-Century literary notables known would later be understood as opium or alleged to have been opium-eaters would tolerance and addiction. Most people who include Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Walter wrote about this period described the use of Scott, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Percy these products for every imaginable ailment, Shelley, and Edgar Allen Poe. But it was but reported little evidence that these drugs DeQuincey’s Confessions that brought were used for their intoxicating properties, or opium to the attention of both the English that many people used them often enough to and the American public develop physical dependencies. There are, DeQuincey described how he had however, some reports of opium addiction. begun using opium in 1804 in the form of John Huyghen van Linschoten, describing Laudanum, to ease the pain produced by his own opium use on a voyage to the West rheumatism and toothache. His use had Indies during the colonial period, noted that: escalated during the following eight years. DeQuincey eloquently recounted the He that useth to eate it, must eate it daylie, pleasures he found in opium, referring to otherwise he dieth and consumeth opium as the “panacea for all human woes” himself...He that hath never eaten it, and will and “the secret of happiness.” Comparing venture at first to eate as much as those that opium to wine, he wrote: daylie use it, it will surely kill him (Quoted in Livingston, 1959). ...whereas wine disorders the mental faculties, opium, on the contrary, introduces During the early 1800s, new opium- amongst them the most exquisite order, based products came into use in America. legislation and harmony. Wine robs a man One popular opiate used in the early of his self-possession; opium sustains and eighteenth century was "black-drop," also reinforces it. Wine unsettles the judgment...; known as Lancaster or Quaker's Black-drop. opium communicates serenity and equipoise In 1814, a Dr. Barton developed a "brown to all the faculties (DeQuincey, 1822, p. 157). mixture" of opium and licorice that also became one of the opium staples. DeQuincey followed this song of Consumption of opium-based products was praise for opium with an account of his commonplace by the early Nineteenth opium-propelled decline after 1813, and of century. his efforts to break free from opium. He In his 1832 dissertation at the described the process of weaning himself University of the State of New York Medical from 8,000 drops of Laudanum a day to 160 School, Dr. William Smith observed that drops a day, and ended his book in the voice "This drug [opium] is in every day's use, and of a reformed opium-eater. particularly among the better circles of In later postscripts added to the book, society, and by the softer sex" (Smith, 1832, DeQuincey confessed his failed efforts to p. 21). While opium use was silently abstain or to find an adequate substitute. increasing, its cultural visibility would soon Like many books that would follow, be enhanced by a small number of literary DeQuincey’s Confessions was long on its figures who would begin to sing its praises. description of opium’s pleasures and short on its description of opium’s agonies. Dr. williamwhitepapers.com 2 H.H. Kane called DeQuincey's book "a mass Nineteenth century had more to do with of ingenious lies" and joined other critics in disease and pain than with the search for accusing DeQuincey of being responsible for pleasure. Forces were brewing that would inciting opium addiction through his tales of dramatically increase America’s vulnerability dreamy opium bliss (Kane, 1881, p. 22). to narcotic addiction. A most interesting analysis of DeQuincey's opium use was later presented Setting the Stage for Opiate Addiction: by Terry and Pellens in their classic text, The Epidemic Disease and the New Opium Problem. Since DeQuincey had Technologies consumed opium in the form of Laudanum-- a 45-percent alcohol tincture, Terry and When one scans the medical journals Pellens calculated the amount of alcohol and popular literature of the nineteenth DeQuincey must have consumed in order to century, one is struck by the absence of any get his required quantities of opium. It turns significant mention of opiate addiction before out that DeQuincey was consuming the 1860. Several factors set the stage for the equivalent of a pint of whiskey a day, in growth of narcotic addiction in the U.S. after addition to the wines and cordials he was 1860. The most significant of these included known to relish regularly. Terry and Pellens the rise in epidemic diseases, the conclude that "...the evidence of alcoholism introduction of morphine and the hypodermic is at least as plain as that of chronic opium syringe into American medicine, the physical poisoning" (Terry and Pellens, 1928, 62-63). and emotional ravages of the Civil War, and DeQuincey’s writings led many early a patent medicine industry that gambled its addiction authorities to make the mistake of future on the power of advertising (Isbell, linking opium use with creative achievement. 1959). Horace Day, for example, must surely have Of the events that led to the increased been inspired by DeQuincey when he wrote use of opiates in the nineteenth century, one the following in his 1868 book, The Opium of the most significant was a series of Habit: epidemics that hit the U.S. in the decades before the Civil War. The increased If his vocation be to write, it matters not how shipment of crude opium into the United profound, how difficult, how knotty the theme States may have been more in response to to be handled, opium imparts a before disease than to addiction, but it exposed unknown power of dealing with such a large numbers of people to opiate use for theme; and after completing his task a man long enough periods of time that addiction reads his own composition with utter may have been the result. amazement at its depth, its grasp, its beauty, The cholera epidemics of 1832-1833, and force of expression, and wonders 1848, and 1854--and the sustained spread whence came the thoughts that stand on the of dysentery between 1847 and 1851--were page before him (Day, 1868, p. 217). all commonly treated with opiates. David Courtwright suggests that this practice may It takes little imagination to see how such have played a significant role in the rise in reports could have led struggling writers opiate addiction (Courtwright, 1978, 1983).