Sydenham’s Laudanum

Opium was, in fact, widely used in British society. It was sold in pharmacies and prescribed by doctors as a remedy for all sorts of ills. Opium was combined with liquor and sold in bars. A bottle of this popular mixture of opium and liquor, called laudanum, was commonplace in English households (see Sydenham s Laudanum box). While the English opinion of opium eventually changed, its initial acceptance as a rather harmless luxury item might have given merchants a clear conscious when pushing its sale on China. 

Invented in 1527, laudanum, a designation for a number of products containing opium, iiquor, and a variety of other ingredients, was the most popuiar form of opium consumption in the West. Of all the laudanum products available, the most popular was a brand called Sydenham s Laudanum, which contained one pound of sherry wine, two ounces of opium, one ounce of saffron, one ounce of powder of cinnamon, and one ounce of powder of cloves. Its popularity stemmed from the sweetness of the sherry undercutting the natural bitterness of opium. For more than 400 years, this method of opium drinking remained widespread among Western nations. 

As Europe began its slow emergence from the Dark Ages in the sixteenth century, opium began to reappear in medical journals on the continent. A century later, an English apothecary named Thomas Sydenham introduced Sydenham s Laudanum, pills made from opium, sherry, and herbs. They were popular remedies for a variety of ills. 

CALLED SYDENHAM S LAUDANUM. Take of Opium, two ounces. 

Nevertheless, in the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century, pure alkaloids were seldom used. For instance, even if recommended by a hospital physician, morphine was barely prescribed, as most physicians remained faithful to Sydenham s laudanum (opium tincture) to treat pain. There was greater curiosity from chemists than from physicians or pharmacists because it was impossible to find alkaline... 

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