Description

Laudanum of Sydenham - Tincture of Opium

Antique pharmacy bottle - Apothecary

1 chip on the neck

Laudanum is a highly addictive alcoholic tincture of opium.

Sydenham's laudanum, a saffron opium tincture introduced and experimented with by Sydenham during the dysentery epidemics of 1669-1672 in London, has been dubbed the "aspirin of the 19th century".

Until the widespread use of morphine, this remedy remained the most widely used analgesic. It's a calming opiate beverage.

In England, it was customary to give a little laudanum to agitated babies to make them sleep... It was commonly prescribed in Victorian homes as a painkiller, and often recommended for diarrhea, coughs, rheumatism, painful menstruation, heart disease, hysteria and so on.

But opiate pharmaceutical preparations are easily converted from therapeutic to recreational use, especially as they are available over the counter at low cost in the UK.

Opium addiction affected all classes of society in England, and even generated an aesthetic quest that left its mark on the history of literature. The poets Coleridge, De Quincey, Poe and Baudelaire, who called themselves "opium eaters" (opiophages), were opium drinkers.

However, in the 19th century, the rise of addictive laudanum consumption in working-class England created very serious health problems.

Today, no commercial forms of this tincture exist in France.

Baudelaire evokes the ambivalence of laudanum: "In this narrow world, so full of disgust, only one known object smiles at me: the vial of laudanum; an old and terrible friend; like all friends, alas! fertile in caresses and treachery".

Height with stopper: 8.5cm 

Empty