Tag: morphine
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Morphine in the life and works of Catalan painter Santiago Rusiñol (1861–1931)
Vicent RodillaValencia, Spain Morphine was discovered by the German pharmacist Friedrich Wilhelm Sertürner, who in 1804 isolated it from opium and named it “morphium” after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams. He noted that high doses could lead to psychiatric effects and that the pain relief provided by this compound was ten times more potent…
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Opium and its derivatives
Humans have taken psychotropic drugs since time immemorial, for pleasure and for pain. Opium was used by the Sumerians during the Neolithic era and mentioned in the Egyptian Papyrus Ebers and in ancient Chinese manuscripts. It was prescribed by the Greek and Roman physicians, by Hippocrates, Dioscorides, Pliny, Celsus, and Galen. The Roman emperor Marcus…
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From poppy to morphine and heroin
JMS PearceHull, England Among the remedies which it has pleased almighty God to give to man to relieve his sufferings, none is so universal and so efficacious as opium.—Thomas Sydenham, 1680 The controversial pharmaceutical company Farbenfabriken Bayer AG* had an important role in the development of morphine, heroin, and aspirin, the most effective and widely…
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Dr. Mikhail Bulgakov and morphine
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “During the years of war and revolution it was hard to find a hospital without morphine-addicted patients.”1– Vladimir Gorovoy-Shaltan, physician specialist in addiction medicine Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov (1891–1940) was a Russian physician, novelist, and playwright. He earned his medical degree from the University of Kiev (now Kyiv) in 1916. In 1919 he…
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Memories of a West Virginia coal camp
Calvin KuninColumbus, Ohio, United States This is a brief account of my experience as a physician at a coal mining camp in rural West Virginia. It is based on my memory of events that took place almost seventy years ago but remain vivid in my mind. The adventure began the day I graduated from medical…
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Ella’s addiction: The story of a mother and morphine
Lisa MulleneauxNew York, New York, United States Doctors today are relearning lessons from a century ago when overprescription of opioids created an epidemic of addicts, most of whom were upper-class or middle-class women. Eugene O’Neill’s mother, Mary “Ella” Quinlan O’Neill, was one of them, and the playwright’s harrowing portrait of her as Mary Tyrone in…
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Poppy power
John Graham-PoleGainesville, Florida, United States The poppy’s juice . . .brings the sleep to dear Mama— Sara Coleridge, Pretty Lessons in Verse for Good Children In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree— Samuel Coleridge, Kubla Khan, penned on waking from an opium-induced dream Of all God’s floral bounty, only papaver somnifera drips its beads…
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On being a spousal caregiver
William BlackKnoxville, Tennessee, United States When I was 55 years old, and had been in the private practice of Internal Medicine and Nephrology for 22 years, my wife Barbara was diagnosed with breast cancer. At the time of her diagnosis she already had widespread bony metastases. Five weeks later, I came home one evening to…
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Illuminating addiction: Morphinomania in fin-de-siècle visual culture
Natalia VieyraPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States The etchings of Paul-Albert Besnard constitute a gruesome assemblage of nineteenth-century social ills—graphic depictions of the hard lives of women plagued by sickness, suicides, prostitution, infanticide, and poverty. Amid this collection of unfortunate modern imagery, an unusual etching featuring two fashionable Parisiennes stands out (Fig. 1). Who are these elegant…