Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Thomas De Quincey

  • Thomas De Quincey and the sisters of sorrow

    Born in Manchester in 1785, De Quincey was a sensitive child and had an unhappy childhood. His two sisters had died very young, and he was only seven years old when his father was also brought home to die. Left in the guardianship of his mother and four friends of the family, he was sent…

  • A very Victorian drug

    Anita CookeNew Brunswick, Canada On February 14, 1862, the Daily News reported the “Death of a Lady from an Overdose of Laudanum.”1 Four nights earlier, Dante Gabriel Rossetti had discovered his wife, Lizzie, in a coma with an empty bottle of laudanum by her side. Despite efforts from doctors, she died a few hours later.…

  • 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…