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| Laudanaum |
In today's blog you'll learn what Laudanum is, how it was used and what it was used for; How painter Tolouse Latreuc referenced it in paintings, a famous victim, and about the epidemic.
WHAT IS LAUDANUM? Laudanum is a tincture of opium containing approximately 10% powdered opium by weight (the equivalent of 1% morphine). Reddish-brown and extremely bitter, laudanum contains almost all of the opium alkaloids, including morphine and codeine.
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| Moulin Rouge. Credit www.allposters.com |
It was not always used for medicinal purposes though; fashion conscious women in the Victorian Era used laudanum to achieve the highly desirable pallid complexion of tuberculosis.
FAST FACT IN PAINTINGS- Painter Tolouse Lautrec was known to paint green-complected faces that reflect the use of Laudanum. In the painting Moulin Rouge, in the foreground, a huge green face, caught in the spooky lights, menaces you. At a table beyond, a gathering of bohemians and dancers whiles away the night.
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| Mattie Blaylock- overdose victim |
Following is the story from the Baltimore Sun about that dangerous drug of the time.
Recollections:
The 19th-century opiate epidemic: laudanum
Thousands of Marylanders
have died from opioid overdoses in recent years, with a surge in deaths
from fentanyl. But our present-day opiate epidemic has a Victorian
precursor.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, hundreds, if not thousands, of Marylanders died by overdosing on laudanum, a mixture of opium and alcohol. Then available at local pharmacies, the drug was used to treat insomnia, headaches, menstrual cramps, colic in babies and more.
The pages of The Baltimore Sun were filled with accounts of people who died after taking it, often driven by lost love, lost business, sickness and, sometimes, sheer ignorance.
A respected sea captain swallowed a fatal dose in 1879 after running into business troubles. Gertrude Staleup, “despondent over her inability to obtain work,” took a lethal dose in 1898, The Sun reported. Miss Simmons of Cumberland, 25, overdosed on the drug rather than die by consumption in 1905.
Perhaps the saddest case of all was 7-year-old Lillie
Benjamin, a Baltimore girl who died after her mother mistook a bottle of
the stuff for ipecac in 1896. The bottles were side by side, “and the
fact that the two liquids were nearly the same color was one of the
causes of the fatal mistake,” according to The Sun.
Modern readers may experience déjà vu when reading of legislation proposed in attempts to quell the deaths in the face of a mounting drug supply — called “the laudanum evil” in one Sun editorial.
ctkacik@baltsun.com
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, hundreds, if not thousands, of Marylanders died by overdosing on laudanum, a mixture of opium and alcohol. Then available at local pharmacies, the drug was used to treat insomnia, headaches, menstrual cramps, colic in babies and more.
The pages of The Baltimore Sun were filled with accounts of people who died after taking it, often driven by lost love, lost business, sickness and, sometimes, sheer ignorance.
A respected sea captain swallowed a fatal dose in 1879 after running into business troubles. Gertrude Staleup, “despondent over her inability to obtain work,” took a lethal dose in 1898, The Sun reported. Miss Simmons of Cumberland, 25, overdosed on the drug rather than die by consumption in 1905.
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| Bottle of Stickney and Poor’s brand of laudanum. Source: University of Buffalo |
Modern readers may experience déjà vu when reading of legislation proposed in attempts to quell the deaths in the face of a mounting drug supply — called “the laudanum evil” in one Sun editorial.
ctkacik@baltsun.com
