Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Thomas De Quincey

  • 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…