the.com/laudanum
Victorian answer to every problem, from toothaches to tedium, bottled in opium and alcohol.
means A tincture of opium dissolved in alcohol, once prescribed freely as a painkiller, sedative, and all-purpose cure.
from A name of uncertain origin, used by Paracelsus in the 1500s for an opium-based remedy. It later settled on a tincture of opium in alcohol, popularized by physicians such as Thomas Sydenham in the 1600s.
- recipe
- opium dissolved in brandy, basically medicinal moonshine
- popularity
- cheaper than gin, sold without prescription for decades
- famous users
- poets wrote masterpieces and nightmares on it
- baby soother
- nurses dosed teething infants with it, horrifyingly