Opium is perhaps the most famous psychoactive substance in the history of mankind, whose derivatives have become synonymous with severe addiction, but its worldwide taboo was not always present. For thousands of years people have used opium for treatment and entertainment.
The first country where its use became a social problem was eighteenth-century China. However, opium and its derivatives are still one of the most effective painkillers widely used in medicine. How the drug became an illegal drug and what the British colonization of India had to do with it, read our first publication on the BB in our series on the history of opiate use.
Even at the dawn of history, people noticed that some plants have a special effect on human well-being - to cheer up, to calm down, to stifle pain, to put people to sleep. In ancient Greece, the drugs derived from such plants were called narcotics - «drugging».
For thousands of years, people used drugs for religious mysteries, for treatment and entertainment. Already in Antiquity, preparations of the sleeping (opium) poppy had a special place among them, which were highly valued by priests and healers.
The first country where its use became a social problem was eighteenth-century China. However, opium and its derivatives are still one of the most effective painkillers widely used in medicine. How the drug became an illegal drug and what the British colonization of India had to do with it, read our first publication on the BB in our series on the history of opiate use.
Even at the dawn of history, people noticed that some plants have a special effect on human well-being - to cheer up, to calm down, to stifle pain, to put people to sleep. In ancient Greece, the drugs derived from such plants were called narcotics - «drugging».
For thousands of years, people used drugs for religious mysteries, for treatment and entertainment. Already in Antiquity, preparations of the sleeping (opium) poppy had a special place among them, which were highly valued by priests and healers.
Later, it was opiates that became associated with the term «narcotics». How is it that nowadays they are considered to be a destructive poison for human beings and society, the cause of the terrible disease of our time - drug addiction?
It was precisely England, where modern scientific and technological progress began and imperialist capitalism was born, that drugs (above all opiates), from a miracle drug trusted by emperors and kings, became the main bugbear of modern society. We have traced the history of opium and its derivatives.
The joy of the Sumerians and the panacea of the Romans
Opium is a potent drug that has been produced for thousands of years from the sun-dried milky juice of the unripe capsules of the sleeping poppy (Papaver somniferum). The plant originated in Asia Minor. From there, poppy culture penetrated into Mesopotamia, Greece and the Mediterranean long before Christ.
The first written references to the use of opium as a medicinal and narcotic drug date back to the Sumerian civilization. Mention of the poppy as a «plant of joy» - «hul gil» - was found on a clay tablet dating from about the middle of the third millennium BC. It also describes how to cultivate the poppy, harvest it, and make a drink from it. The Sumerians used it mainly for ritual purposes and medicine as an anesthetic. For entertainment gil was seldom used.
It was precisely England, where modern scientific and technological progress began and imperialist capitalism was born, that drugs (above all opiates), from a miracle drug trusted by emperors and kings, became the main bugbear of modern society. We have traced the history of opium and its derivatives.
The joy of the Sumerians and the panacea of the Romans
Opium is a potent drug that has been produced for thousands of years from the sun-dried milky juice of the unripe capsules of the sleeping poppy (Papaver somniferum). The plant originated in Asia Minor. From there, poppy culture penetrated into Mesopotamia, Greece and the Mediterranean long before Christ.
The first written references to the use of opium as a medicinal and narcotic drug date back to the Sumerian civilization. Mention of the poppy as a «plant of joy» - «hul gil» - was found on a clay tablet dating from about the middle of the third millennium BC. It also describes how to cultivate the poppy, harvest it, and make a drink from it. The Sumerians used it mainly for ritual purposes and medicine as an anesthetic. For entertainment gil was seldom used.
In ancient Egypt, opium poppy was widely used a thousand and a half years before Christ, during the time of the Thutmoseid pharaohs. This information is contained in the ancient Egyptian Ebers Papyrus, a compendium of ancient Egyptian medical knowledge compiled in the 16th century B.C., during the reign of Pharaoh Yahmose, and discovered by the German scientist Georg Ebers in 1873.
The treatise contains almost 900 recipes for medicines for the stomach, lungs, heart, hearing and vision disorders, and all kinds of infections. Many of them included the sleeping poppy.
In particular, the manuscript describes an opium-based potion, spen, which was used to soothe infants. Opiates were also used for surgery, dentistry, and euthanasia.
An opium tincture was also spoiled by the ancient Greeks. It was called «drink of oblivion» and was known as far back as nine centuries B.C. The Greek word «nepenthes» has a common root with the Egyptian «spen».
The Greeks seem to have borrowed the culture of poppy cultivation and use from the Egyptians. Here is how the nepenthes is described in Homer's Odyssey:
«It drowns in grief and anger, and the oblivion of calamity comes.
If one were to drink it mixed with wine in a crater,
A whole day would not wipe a tear from his cheek,
Even if a father or a mother were dead…»
The famous poet Hesiod (8th century B.C.) described the cultivation of the poppy at Mekon («Poppy City»), which was located in Corinth. It was probably the center of the cult of Demeter, the goddess of fertility, one of the symbols of which as a sleeping and waking deity was the poppy. To this day in Greece it is customary to decorate the last sheaf of the harvest with poppy flowers.
The Greeks seem to have borrowed the culture of poppy cultivation and use from the Egyptians. Here is how the nepenthes is described in Homer's Odyssey:
«It drowns in grief and anger, and the oblivion of calamity comes.
If one were to drink it mixed with wine in a crater,
A whole day would not wipe a tear from his cheek,
Even if a father or a mother were dead…»
The famous poet Hesiod (8th century B.C.) described the cultivation of the poppy at Mekon («Poppy City»), which was located in Corinth. It was probably the center of the cult of Demeter, the goddess of fertility, one of the symbols of which as a sleeping and waking deity was the poppy. To this day in Greece it is customary to decorate the last sheaf of the harvest with poppy flowers.
The poppy was also an attribute of Hypnos, the god of dreams, and his brother Thanatos, the god of death, and his son Morpheus, the deity of dreams. Thanatos was depicted with a poppy crown, and Morpheus - in black robes, with a crown of poppy flowers or heads, and with a goblet of poppy juice.
The «Father of medicine», the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.) widely used opium as an analgesic and hypnotic.
One of the first to give a scientific description of the opium poppy was a student of Plato and Aristotle and the founder of botany, Theophrastus (372-287 BC). In his treatise «History of Plants» he gave information on cultivation of the poppy, methods of incising the seed capsules to obtain the milky juice, its properties and action.
We also owe the name of the drug to the Hellenes. «Όπιο» means «juice» in Greek. It later gave rise to the name of the potion in many other languages: «ophion» in ancient Hebrew and «af-yun» or «afiun» in Arabic.
From the Arabs, who traded throughout the Orient, the name spread to other Asian languages. For example, the Chinese borrowed it from them and call the poppy juice «o-fu-yung», «ya-pien», and «opien», depending on the dialect.
The «Father of medicine», the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.) widely used opium as an analgesic and hypnotic.
One of the first to give a scientific description of the opium poppy was a student of Plato and Aristotle and the founder of botany, Theophrastus (372-287 BC). In his treatise «History of Plants» he gave information on cultivation of the poppy, methods of incising the seed capsules to obtain the milky juice, its properties and action.
We also owe the name of the drug to the Hellenes. «Όπιο» means «juice» in Greek. It later gave rise to the name of the potion in many other languages: «ophion» in ancient Hebrew and «af-yun» or «afiun» in Arabic.
From the Arabs, who traded throughout the Orient, the name spread to other Asian languages. For example, the Chinese borrowed it from them and call the poppy juice «o-fu-yung», «ya-pien», and «opien», depending on the dialect.
The culture of sleeping poppy cultivation spread from the West to the East. It began with the conquests of Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.), whose armies introduced poppies into the defeated Persian Empire as far as India.
In ancient Rome, the poppy was mentioned by the literary figure and statesman Marcus Porcius Cato (234-149 B.C.) and the encyclopedic philosopher Marcus Terentius Varron (116-27 B.C.). The Romans used poppies in the form of a tincture with saffron and aloe.
The scholar-encyclopedist Avlus Cornelius Celsus (25 BC-50 AD), nicknamed Cicero of medicine and the Roman Hippocrates, in his work «On Medicine» described the narcotic effect of opium, which he called «tears of the poppy».
In the first century A.D., the physician and scientist Dioscorides composed the encyclopedia «On Medicinal Substances», which for the next thousand and a half years, until the discovery of America, was the main source of knowledge on pharmacy.
In ancient Rome, the poppy was mentioned by the literary figure and statesman Marcus Porcius Cato (234-149 B.C.) and the encyclopedic philosopher Marcus Terentius Varron (116-27 B.C.). The Romans used poppies in the form of a tincture with saffron and aloe.
The scholar-encyclopedist Avlus Cornelius Celsus (25 BC-50 AD), nicknamed Cicero of medicine and the Roman Hippocrates, in his work «On Medicine» described the narcotic effect of opium, which he called «tears of the poppy».
In the first century A.D., the physician and scientist Dioscorides composed the encyclopedia «On Medicinal Substances», which for the next thousand and a half years, until the discovery of America, was the main source of knowledge on pharmacy.
In his treatise, he not only spoke of opium, but even revealed the differences between opium obtained from incisions in poppy heads and that prepared by boiling the poppy. Dioscorides called the juice of the poppy meconine. From the juice of the poppy seed capsule he obtained and studied the substance meconion and described a syrup based on it, which he called diakodum.
Syrup from poppy juice under the name «diacod» was sold in European pharmacies in the 19th century. Such a drug is mentioned, for example, in the novel «Without Bottom» (1891) by the French writer Joris Huysmans.
Dioscorides contemporary, the Roman scholar and statesman Pliny the Elder, wrote that the inhabitants of the Eternal City inhaled the smoke from burning poppies through a sugar cane stalk to cure and improve their mood.
The popularity of opium in Rome was also promoted by Galen (2nd century), a physician of unquestionable authority, who extolled its therapeutic properties. In the fourth century, Oribasius, the court physician of Emperor Julian the Apostate, compiled a manual in which he mentioned the use of opium for treating various diseases.
Syrup from poppy juice under the name «diacod» was sold in European pharmacies in the 19th century. Such a drug is mentioned, for example, in the novel «Without Bottom» (1891) by the French writer Joris Huysmans.
Dioscorides contemporary, the Roman scholar and statesman Pliny the Elder, wrote that the inhabitants of the Eternal City inhaled the smoke from burning poppies through a sugar cane stalk to cure and improve their mood.
The popularity of opium in Rome was also promoted by Galen (2nd century), a physician of unquestionable authority, who extolled its therapeutic properties. In the fourth century, Oribasius, the court physician of Emperor Julian the Apostate, compiled a manual in which he mentioned the use of opium for treating various diseases.
Some recipes for opium preparations have come down to us since that time. One of them was teriak, which had a reputation as a panacea and, more importantly, a universal antidote, because the fear of poisoning was one of the main phobias of the rulers for thousands of years. Teriak was prepared with wine and honey in the form of a black paste.
It was first made by Andromache, the doctor of Emperor Nero, and improved and described by Galen, according to whose recipe this opiate was prepared until the 18th century. For Galen's theriac with poppy tincture, Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who used it almost every day (and perhaps that is why he went down in history as the greatest representative of stoicism), gave a gold chain with the inscription: «Antoninus, emperor of the Romans, to Galen, emperor of doctors».
In the first century B.C., Philonia was considered an excellent remedy for intestinal colic and dysentery and, again, an antidote, the author of which Pliny the Elder named physician Philo of Tarsus (I century B.C.). Philonia remained in the English pharmacopoeia until 1867. It was made from white pepper, ginger, cumin, opium and syrup of poppy seeds.
It was first made by Andromache, the doctor of Emperor Nero, and improved and described by Galen, according to whose recipe this opiate was prepared until the 18th century. For Galen's theriac with poppy tincture, Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who used it almost every day (and perhaps that is why he went down in history as the greatest representative of stoicism), gave a gold chain with the inscription: «Antoninus, emperor of the Romans, to Galen, emperor of doctors».
In the first century B.C., Philonia was considered an excellent remedy for intestinal colic and dysentery and, again, an antidote, the author of which Pliny the Elder named physician Philo of Tarsus (I century B.C.). Philonia remained in the English pharmacopoeia until 1867. It was made from white pepper, ginger, cumin, opium and syrup of poppy seeds.
Journey to the East and back
In the early Middle Ages, the center of opiate use shifted from Europe to the East. On the one hand, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Europeans lost ancient knowledge, including knowledge of medicine and pharmacology. On the other hand, the spread of Islam contributed to this: the Arabs used opium because it replaced alcohol, which was forbidden by the rules of the Koran.
Besides, it had another useful feature - it killed hunger, which was very important for Muslims during the strict month-long fasting period, Ramadan. Opium was dissolved in water, eaten in the form of tortillas and chewed. Opiophagy spread first in Persia and then in Turkey.
At the same time, the Arabs began to be acquainted with the ancient scientific heritage. The book of Dioscorides was translated into Arabic and was popular in the East almost until the 20th century. Such eminent scientists as Ibn Sina (known in the West as Avicenna, 980-1037), Ibn Rushd (Averroes, 1126-1198) and others used it to study medicinal plants.
For example, Ibn Sina in his treatise «Canon of Medicine» recommended poppy and its extract for eye diseases, stomach diseases, diabetes, impotence, lack of milk in women, calming of infants, diarrhea.
Hashashash is a sleeping poppy. There are several kinds of poppy: garden poppy, wild poppy, and sometimes black poppy, and one more kind - horny, that is, sea poppy, which has a curved fruit, as well as the «frothy» kind - hirakli. The best and most harmless poppy is the white poppy. The poppy heads of all kinds should be pounded fresh, made into cakes, preserved, and consumed».
He was one of the first to point out the dangers of addiction to poppy and its derivatives.
«Of the remedies that cause numbness, the strongest is opium. The other remedies are mandrake, its seeds, peel and root, various kinds of poppies, black calendula, and cold water. <...> If an illness is accompanied by some pain or the like, or by something that causes pain, such as a blow and a fall, you should begin by soothing that pain. If you need to dull the pain, do not overuse such remedies as sleeping poppy, for it, by dulling the pain, becomes habitual and is eaten as an edible».
Hashashash is a sleeping poppy. There are several kinds of poppy: garden poppy, wild poppy, and sometimes black poppy, and one more kind - horny, that is, sea poppy, which has a curved fruit, as well as the «frothy» kind - hirakli. The best and most harmless poppy is the white poppy. The poppy heads of all kinds should be pounded fresh, made into cakes, preserved, and consumed».
He was one of the first to point out the dangers of addiction to poppy and its derivatives.
«Of the remedies that cause numbness, the strongest is opium. The other remedies are mandrake, its seeds, peel and root, various kinds of poppies, black calendula, and cold water. <...> If an illness is accompanied by some pain or the like, or by something that causes pain, such as a blow and a fall, you should begin by soothing that pain. If you need to dull the pain, do not overuse such remedies as sleeping poppy, for it, by dulling the pain, becomes habitual and is eaten as an edible».
According to one version, Avicenna himself died of an overdose of opium with which he tried to treat a stomach ailment.
The first mentions of poppy cultivation in China date back to the 8th century. The Celestials learned from the Arabs and Persians how to «brew» poppies and make cakes from opium. A late 10th-century medicine book describes the use of the poppy called «yin-tsu-shu» to treat dysentery, pain and insomnia.
Opiates only returned to Europe during the Renaissance, when the legacy of antiquity was rediscovered. Moreover, the revanchism of opium was helped by the reduction of the influence of the church - the Inquisition of the late Middle Ages mercilessly punished any fancies for potions from the «satanic» East. The papacy even banned cannabis, which grew everywhere in Europe after crusaders brought hashish from Palestine.
In the 16th century, the Venetian physician and writer Girolamo Fracastoro (1478-1553) composed a sedative based on opium, cinnamon, cassia fruits, white ash, gummiarabic, white pepper, Armenian clay and gum, which he named after the famous ancient physician - Dioscoridium. The remedy has been very popular for several centuries; even children were prescribed it in the 19th century.
The first mentions of poppy cultivation in China date back to the 8th century. The Celestials learned from the Arabs and Persians how to «brew» poppies and make cakes from opium. A late 10th-century medicine book describes the use of the poppy called «yin-tsu-shu» to treat dysentery, pain and insomnia.
Opiates only returned to Europe during the Renaissance, when the legacy of antiquity was rediscovered. Moreover, the revanchism of opium was helped by the reduction of the influence of the church - the Inquisition of the late Middle Ages mercilessly punished any fancies for potions from the «satanic» East. The papacy even banned cannabis, which grew everywhere in Europe after crusaders brought hashish from Palestine.
In the 16th century, the Venetian physician and writer Girolamo Fracastoro (1478-1553) composed a sedative based on opium, cinnamon, cassia fruits, white ash, gummiarabic, white pepper, Armenian clay and gum, which he named after the famous ancient physician - Dioscoridium. The remedy has been very popular for several centuries; even children were prescribed it in the 19th century.
By the way, the widespread use of opiates to calm young children was one of the reasons for their high mortality rate. And not because of the narcotic effect. Opium, as already mentioned, suppressed the sense of hunger, so that children died of banal exhaustion.
A famous contemporary of the Venetian, the Swiss Paracelsus (1493-1541) called opium the «stone of immortality» and created on its basis a whole series of drugs, including pills and alcohol tinctures - laudanum (from Latin laudandum - venerable) and anodyne (from Greek anodydon - an analgesic). In addition to purified opium, they included orange or lemon juice, frog semen, cinnamon, clove grains, petrified resin and saffron.
A famous contemporary of the Venetian, the Swiss Paracelsus (1493-1541) called opium the «stone of immortality» and created on its basis a whole series of drugs, including pills and alcohol tinctures - laudanum (from Latin laudandum - venerable) and anodyne (from Greek anodydon - an analgesic). In addition to purified opium, they included orange or lemon juice, frog semen, cinnamon, clove grains, petrified resin and saffron.
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There are several hypotheses as to the origin of the name «laudanum», the name given to alcoholic tinctures of opium until the end of the 19th century. According to one version, Paracelsus composed it from two words: Iaudatum opium - «beautiful opium». But the classic recipe for laudanum - 10% opium in 90% alcohol - came later. It was deduced in 1669 by another eminent physician, «the father of English medicine» - Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689).
Medicines based on the opium poppy were rapidly gaining popularity. They were prescribed for infectious diseases (smallpox, tuberculosis, cholera, dysentery, syphilis, whooping cough), as well as for dropsy, gout, headache, heart problems, miscarriage, colic and cough. Pills, tinctures, suppositories, rubs, and ointments were prepared from the poppy. But the side effects of such remedies had already made themselves felt.
Part II read here
Medicines based on the opium poppy were rapidly gaining popularity. They were prescribed for infectious diseases (smallpox, tuberculosis, cholera, dysentery, syphilis, whooping cough), as well as for dropsy, gout, headache, heart problems, miscarriage, colic and cough. Pills, tinctures, suppositories, rubs, and ointments were prepared from the poppy. But the side effects of such remedies had already made themselves felt.
Part II read here
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