I read a lot of literature from centuries past or books about people from centuries past and my disturbed brain is always drawn to references to the darker stuff.
Laudenum is a drug that pops up quite a bit in old tymey stuff and it has a nasty reputation.. Laudenum is an alcoholic herbal preparation containing 10% powdered opium and 90% alcohol. It came about when a 16th century Swiss-German alchemist discovered that alkaloids in opium are far more soluble in alcohol than water.
This is what I love about humanity. What the hell was this guy researching when he discovered this? Could be he was looking for a new drug for pain relief. Could be he was looking for a better high.
Given my point of view and the history of humanity, I am opting for the latter theory. But that is a story for another place and time.
By the 18th century the medicinal properties of opium and laudenum were well known and many physicians were prescribing it for practically every ailment. It was used to relieve pain, to produce sleep, to treat colds, meningitis, cardiac disease, and to relieve menstrual cramps.
Regulation became stricter in the early 20th century with the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 which required that certain specified drugs be accurately labelled with contents and dosage. However cocaine, marijuana, heroin and other drugs continued to be legally available without prescription as long as they were labelled.
This was a wonderful time in American history.
As I read up on laudenum I was blown away to find out that it is still available by prescription in this country. I thought it was an old tymey drug that was eventually demonized and banned. I don't know how often it is prescribed and for what, but I am thinking once I get my medical marijuana card I may try to expand it's usage through the relaxed moral standards of Dr. Feelgood.
As always, I am interested in the drug because of it's relation to the creative community. Users included Lord Byron, Percy Blythe Shelley, John Keats, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, William Taylor Coleridge, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, to name a few.
And this whole line of inquiry leads me to another favorite topic - absinthe.
Absinthe is an anise flavored spirit that is high in alcohol content and contains the evil herb wormwood. It was created by a French doctor as a drinkable concoction, green in color and known as "The Green Lady", and was rumored to cure everything from flatulence to anemia. Drinking absinthe is said to result in "psychoactive pleasure."
It was used in the 1840's as a field treatment for malaria for French soldiers.
Wormwood is a relative of the plant family known as daisies. Sounds pretty benign to me. But it contains thujone, a psychoactive chemical that supposedly has hallucinatory and calming effects. It began to get a bad rap due to winemakers PR, and due to the excesses of the19th century creative types who embraced absinthe.
Absinthe soared in popularity initially due to The Great French Wine Blight of the mid 1800's, when wine production virtually stopped. Drinkers found absinthe to be a marvellous substitute for wine. But when the winemakers got back to business they demonized "The Green Lady", calling it the "Green Curse", characterizing it's psychoactive pleasure as toxic side-effects and the result of madness.
People like Van Gogh, Oscar Wilde, Charles Baudelaire, and Arthur Rimbaud embraced absinthe and furthered it's evil reputation through their excesses.
Absinthe was actually banned in the United States in 1912 and in many other countries around the world around that time as well. You could still buy it but in a neutered form, without wormwood.It came back to respectability in the early 21st century and I am proud to say I own a bottle, with wormwood.
The first time I drank it I experienced a wonderful high. I was afraid to drink more right away because of it's reputation so I grabbed a beer trying to enhance the high. The beer did nothing, as if the absinthe rejected it with contempt.
I also enjoyed the ritual of pouring cold water over a sugar cube perched on an absinthe spoon balanced on the rim of the glass. Rituals are cool, baby.
Anyway, I know you are bored. I see you yawning. The whole point of this history lesson is that I am fascinated with the human race's relationship with booze and drugs.
We want them, we need them, but we make up stories, we call them medicinal, we outlaw them, we legalize them, we demonize them, we exploit them, we hide them, we celebrate them.
We are generally tortured souls. Why do we want to complicate our relationship with the things that make us feel better?
Do what you will. I'm contemplating a glass of absinthe before The Sox game so I can enjoy Jerry and Don that much more.
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