From RWA: Laudanum Use In The 19th Century...

Regular laudanum users were Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allen Poe, William Taylor Coleridge, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (as well as his character Sherlock Holmes) and they were only a few. I confess I’m more than a little surprised that Charles Dickens appears on the list. Before we judge, however, we have to understand the times. 

Look in your medicine cabinet. If yours is like mine, you stock pain relievers for headaches and arthritis, coughs, Immodium, allergies, and gas relief. In the 1800’s, mortality from cholera, malaria, and dysentery was very high. Now we only have to take an Immodium tablet or something similar, but diarrhea actually killed huge numbers of people while they suffered terrible cramping. Even if laudanum couldn’t cure them, it eased their pain. 

New Rx's 
decrease death 
rates

Tuberculosis was a problem, made worse by living conditions and hard work necessary for life in those times. Think of the furor when there’s an outbreak of e-coli, but that must have been commonplace in Victorian times and hardly newsworthy. 

It’s hard to realize just how deadly these diseases were because we have sanitation that has diminished cholera and dysentery. The drainage of swamp lands decreased malaria, a disease one of my ancestors contracted from living in the Brazos River Valley near Waco, Texas in the 1880’s. Introduction of aspirin in 1899 provided an alternative medication for pain relief. Along with antibiotics, modern pharmaceuticals have diminished the severity of all those diseases. 

A century ago, a
sick woman would
have taken 
laudanum

I wouldn’t feel comfortable providing the recipe I discovered for making laudanum, but it was 10% opium and 90% alcohol and usually flavored with cinnamon and sometimes also saffran. Not only was it available over the counter, it was recommended by doctors for everything from menstrual cramps to tuberculosis. It was much cheaper than any other form of pain killer, and that made it attractive to those in the lower economic classes. By no means was laudanum used only by the poor. Wealthy women even used it to achieve a coveted pallid complexion, and even infants were spoon fed laudanum. Only later did people realize that laudanum use was habit forming and demanded greater and greater doses to provide relief. 

Modern 
vaccinations
eliminate formerly
fatal diseases

In 1906, the Pure Food and Drug Act required that certain specified drugs--alcohol, cocaine, heroin, morphine, and cannabis--be accurately labeled with contents and dosage. Previously, many drugs had been sold as patent medicines with secret ingredients or misleading labels. Authorities estimate that sales decreased by one third after labeling was required. The Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914 restricted the manufacture and distribution of opiates, including laudanum, and coca derivatives in the United States. Not until the middle of the 20th century did the U.S. government limit the use of opiates. In 1970, the U.S. adopted the Uniform Controlled Substances Act, which regulated opium tincture (laudanum) as a Schedule II substance and placed tighter controls on the drug.