Drug taking has been as much of a problem in the past as it is now. People have always looked for substances to aliviate their suffering either mental or physical. One such opium based drug called Laudanum was easily obtained and was even given to babies and pregnant women.
It has been the cause of death for many either by design or by accident and has even been used as an instrument for murder. The following advertisement shows that Miners were encouraged to ‘stock up’ on these supplies before coming to the Goldfields.
Miner West Australian 17 April 1894, page 4
From pre-history through Sumerian, Greek and Roman cultures, opium has been used for pain management. But it was in the preparation known as laudanum that it entered the modern world of medicine.
Laudanum is an opium tincture made from poppy seeds and contains almost all the 20 opium alkaloids, such as morphine and codeine. The drug works on the central nervous system to slow transmission of signals within the body as well as slowing respiratory and heart function.
Kalgoorlie Miner 21 Mar 1898
Many chemists formulated their own laudanum recipes, with British chemist Thomas Sydenham creating a version in the 1670s which popularised the drug in the UK and led to its spread around the world, and saw it referenced in literature of the time as
‘a panacea for all human woes – the secret of happiness’.
Sydenham’s laudanum was a mix of wine, beer, saffron, clove, cinnamon and opium, and was used in treating headaches, cough and tuberculosis, gout, rheumatism, diarrhoea, menstrual pain, as well as depression (melancholy).
By the 1800s laudanum was widely available—it could be easily purchased from pubs, grocers, barber shops, tobacconists, pharmacies, and even confectioners. The drug was often cheaper than alcohol, making it affordable to all levels of society. It was prescribed for everything from soothing a cranky infant to treating headaches, persistent cough, gout, rheumatism, diarrhea, melancholy, and “women’s troubles.”
Kalgoorlie Miner 21 Mar 1898
Laudanum became widely used throughout Victorian society as a medicine, and soon many writers, poets, and artists (along with many ordinary people) became addicted. Bram Stoker, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, and many others including Florence Nightingale were all known to have used laudanum. Some managed to take it briefly while ill, but others became hopelessly dependent.
Kalgoorlie Miner 9 Jun 1898
On our shores, laudanum was commonly used from the first days of British settlement. Little has been specifically written about the use of laudanum in Australia, but opioids themselves have been popular in Australia since the early days of settlement. The decline of laudanum use began in 1897 when legislation in Queensland first tried to restrict the sale of opiates; all sales would finally be restricted in 1926 when Australia joined the 1925 Geneva Convention on Opium and Other Drugs.
Kalgoorlie Miner 24 Feb 1898
Ref:
The Australian Pharmacist.com
The Lure of Laudanum, the Victorians’ Favorite Drug by Claire Cock-Starkey
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