In 1791 Elizabeth Blake tried to help her sister, New Yorker Catalina Hale, to end her years-long dependency on laudanum, a pain reliever that consisted of opium and alcohol. Catalina was turning twenty-two, and she had already made two attempts to quit.[1] She had begun taking laudanum under a doctor’s orders, to treat “a painful… Read more →
Tag: Opiates
Disproving Self-Indulgence: Congenital Addiction in the Early Twentieth Century
On October 10, 1989, police arrived at the Medical University of South Carolina. They handcuffed Lori Griffin, a black girl not yet eighteen, and arrested her for distributing cocaine to a minor. That minor was her newborn child — distribution took place through the placenta. The police came because Lori’s urine had tested positive for… Read more →