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.