Tag: Opium
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Hector Berlioz: from medical school to music conservatory
Michael YafiHouston, Texas, United States Louis-Hector Berlioz (1803–1869) was born in La Côte-Saint-André, France. His father was a well-known physician in his hometown in the French Alps and wanted his son to follow in his footsteps. At the age of eighteen, Hector was sent to Paris to study medicine.1 Although he was passionate about music,…
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Heinrich Heine and the mattress tomb
Nicolás Roberto Robles Badajoz, Spain Harry Heine was born in Bolkerstrasse, Düsseldorf, Germany. He jokingly described himself as the “first man of the century,” claiming that he had been born on New Year’s Eve 1800. Researchers have discovered, however, that December 13, 1797, is most likely the date of his birth. The oldest of four children,…
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The illness of Tom Wedgwood: A tragic episode in a family saga
John Hayman Melbourne, Australia Tom Wedgwood (1771-1805) was born into the famous pottery dynasty as the third surviving son of Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795) and his wife Sarah (1734-1815). Sarah was also a Wedgwood, a distant cousin of her husband.1 Tom was ill for all of his short life, a life recorded by his biographer, Richard…
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More than “toil and trouble”: Macbeth and medicine
Mariel TishmaChicago, Illinois, United States The image of a woman – a witch — working over a bubbling cauldron filled with stomach-turning substances is a staple of both horror and more family friendly media. One such example is Shakespeare’s Macbeth, specifically the “Double, double toil and trouble” speech given by the three witches in Act…
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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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Thomas De Quincey and Confessions of an English Opium-Eater: Opium as medicine and beyond
Jared GriffinPennsauken, New Jersey, United States If a man “whose talk is of oxen,” should become an Opium-eater,the probability is, that (if he is not too dull to dream at all)—he will dream about oxen:whereas, in the case before him, the reader will find that the Opium-eater boasteth himself to be a philosopher;and accordingly, that…