The Mystique of Opium E-Book

Donald Wigal

• Herausgeber: Parkstone International
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 58

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Opium used to have the same importance in international economy and state-led strategies as petrol has today. It became the basis for trade with isolationist China as soon as the Opium Wars obtained trading rights for Western Companies. International strategies for personal reveries… 19th-century European writers were to begin praising this “midnight fairy”. This book offers a tastefully illustrated history of this toxic substance, its paraphernalia and era.

Leseprobe

Donald Wigal

THE

MYSTIQUE

OF OPIUM

© 2024, Confidential Concepts, Worldwide, USA

© 2024, Parkstone Press USA, New York

© Image-Barwww.image-bar.com

© 2024, Cocteau, Artists Rights Society, New York, USA / ADAGP, Paris

© 2024, F. Devos

All rights reserved. No part of this may be reproduced or adapted without the permission of the copyright holder, throughout the world.

Unless otherwise specified, copyright on the works reproduced lies with the respective photographers. Despite intensive research, it has not always been possible to establish copyright ownership. Where this is the case, we would appreciate notification.

ISBN: 978-1-63919-895-5

Contents

I. Turning On: Introduction

Lighting Up: The Beautiful – And Dangerous

Discovering Opium: Hippocrates Was Hip

Follow The Money: The Opium Wars

II. Turning On: Ritual And Practice

Inhaling Or Shooting Up: Poppy Nose Best

Opium Dens: Where Everybody Knows Your Game

Highs And Lows: A Hip Gathering

III. Dropping Out: Taboos And Fantasies

The Exotic Appeal: From Laudanum To Laurent

The Story Of O: Cherchez La Femme

O, Sweet Death: Dying For A Fix

IV. Getting Real: Opening Out On Reality

The Poppy Trail: Repeating History

The Pen In The Den: The Beat Goes On

Poppy And Popcorn: Finding The O In Movie

Traffic Jam: Drugs Were Just The Beginning

References

List Of Illustrations

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND DEDICATION

Art research by Jim Cullina of Art Sleuth, Ontario, Canada; Anthony Bautista and William Kuhns for providing extensive reference materials; Fr. James Heft, S.M. and John Spellman for advice; Joseph Maurer for generous support; Mariena Montoya for office management; Mel Kuhbander for sharing his eye for detail; James Robert Parish and George Sullivan for advice; and especially to Catherine O’Reilly for indispensable editorial assistance.

My work here is dedicated to past and present colleagues who are or have been addicted to religion or drugs.

— Donald Wigal

I. TURNING ON: INTRODUCTION

LIGHTING UP: THE BEAUTIFUL – AND DANGEROUS

“Drugs were just the beginning.”

Advertising tag line, “Traffic: The Miniseries”

Intense interest in the opium clipper, The Frolic, started in 1984, with a surprising discovery in the Redwood Forest of California, off the coast of northern California at Mendocina. Pieces of Chinese ceramics which had been shaped into arrowheads by Native Americans were found. The sharpened pieces were discovered among the many boxes of Chinese products from The Frolic that were intended to be sold to “the ’49ers,” those optimistic miners who rushed to California seeking gold in the mid-19th century. [1*]

{*} Numbers refer to references listed in the appendix.

The clipper had spent its previous six years smuggling North Indian opium from Bombay into China. The Baltimore-built ship was designed to be exceptionally fast. It could do an amazing 14-15 knots, making it capable of escaping the best of Chinese vessels. The Frolic was the last of the ships out of Baltimore that embarrassed the slower British ships during the War of 1812. [10]

Driving along the California coast today, thrill seekers might enjoy finding poppies growing wild. What could be more exciting than to find something that could produce the miraculous drug that is praised by scholars and poets, physicians and hedonists throughout history? It could be like the excitement Native Americans probably experienced 150 years ago when they found the treasure from The Frolic.

Opium has definitely been shown to relieve pain, reduce hunger and thirst, induce restful sleep and reduce anxiety. However, like other great gifts to mankind, opium can either be of great benefit or be fatal, depending on how, when, and why people use it.

J. Le Moyne de Morgues, Opium Poppy (Papaver Somniferum), c. 1568. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

The clipper Ly-ee-moon. The London Illustrated News, July 14th 1860, p.37.

The California dreamers who pick up wild poppies from the side of the road will be brought back to reality after a little research. They will discover that the so-called California poppy [Escholtzia californica] is in fact a wildflower in the buttercup family. It produces no capsule and therefore is not actually a member of the poppy family, albeit at first glance it certainly looks like its capsule-bearing cousin.

Obviously some basic facts and an appreciation about the poppy and opium are needed, even though surely most people have learned some basics already from everyday pop culture. It is almost impossible to watch recent mainstream movies or read pulp fiction without learning that opium is a narcotic drug.

When it was studied more closely, researchers learned that opium is obtained from the juice of the immature fruits of the Oriental poppy. Careful observers will notice that typical opium poppies have four petals of white, violet, pink, or red. They surround a star-shaped stigma from which at least five and up to 16 ‘rays’ fan out. A single pistil [containing from 150 to 200 stamens] is surrounded by five concentric circles. Fertilization produces from 800 to 2,000 seeds. [12]

Opium Poppy, (three varieties), Papaver somniferum; Field Poppy, Papaver rhoeas. 16th century. Watercolor. Collection of Theodorus Clutius.

William Alexander, Chinese Sailor Smoking in His Junk, 1795. Watercolor on paper, 22 x 19 cm. The Makins Collection.

The true opium producing plant, Papaver somniferum L., is a member of the poppy family Papaveraceae. There are over 100 species in that family, several with many varieties. Most are found in temperate Asia and in central and southern Europe, not in the fields of California.

When opium-bearing poppies are studied, many varieties used for the production of poppy seeds and seed oil for baking are not included. Only a few of the many species of poppy contain the alkaloids found in opium. [20]

Morphine and codeine are two of the most familiar and useful of some twenty natural alkaloids of opium. Several synthetic drugs have been developed from opium, including meperideine, best known as DemerolTM. It acts more quickly, but its effects are of less duration than morphine. It too is a narcotic and is habit-forming. Paregoric and laudanum also need to be mentioned. [39]

Heroin, Diacetylmorphine, was discovered in 1898. It would become the most important drug synthesized from the natural alkaloids. Ironically, heroin was originally thought to be a cure for addiction to other opiates. In the 1860’s, the hypodermic syringe was perfected. Physicians mistakenly believed that opium-eating addicts who took morphine by syringe would no longer be addicted to eating opium. Patients with chronic but not life-threatening pain were given morphine and a syringe, with directions on how to inject themselves. But dependence on heroin turned out to be even more devastating than addiction to morphine or opium itself. The great syringe mistake is one example of why science must continually strive to learn. [29, 30]