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Though
absinthe has lately
been known and romanticized
for its hallucinogenic
usage in the Victorian
Era, it was truly
the mixture of alcohol
and opium known
as Laudanum that
had the most profound
effect on Victorian
society.
In the nineteen
century, when opium
dens run by Chinese
immigrants became
popular, Laudanum
was used as an easy,
discreet opium high.
It was less expensive
than gin.
Byron, Keats, Shelley,
Poe, Dickens and
Baudelaire were
users, as well as
the French filmmaker
Jean Cocteau.
Elizabeth Barrett
Browning became
addicted from the
treatment of a childhood
illness. Elizabeth
Siddal, the wife
of Dante Gabriel
Rossetti and the
model for Millais'
"Ophelia"
was an addict and
possibly died of
an overdose.
Philippus von Hohenheim,
a Swiss alchemist
known as Paracelsus,
is credited with
inventing Laudanum
in the 1500's. For
centuries after,
it was the best
painkiller in use,
but it was used
for anything from
cancer to cramps
to the common cold.
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