Jensen 1 Brooke Jensen Western Civilization 2 December 2, 2010 Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express

train racing toward death. To smoke opium is to get out of the train while it is still moving. It is to concern oneself with something other than life or death. Opium was quite possibly the first drug known to mankind. It was conceived from poppy fields in which sweat drenched laborers slowly and expertly tapped and lanced the pod of the flower. It emerged from the ancient civilizations who used it to cure their illnesses and forget their despair. It was pioneered by countries who were propelled by greed and knew its potential for revenue. It was overlooked by the government as it corrupted the rich and demoralized the poor. It enlightened painters and poets and gave doctors the illusion of performing miracles. It caused countries to be belligerent and blood-thirsty. It supplied the natural foundation for morphine. It murdered. It saved. It was opium. The miracle drug. The elixir of the gods. The opium poppy, classified as Papaver somniferum, was first cultivated in the areas of Eastern Europe surrounding the Black Sea, and its mysterious origins vaguely trace back to the ancient thriving civilizations of Persia, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. The poppy was first recorded on a written account around 3400 BC by the Sumerians, who referred to the plant as hul and gil, which translate into plant of joy. Because of their proximity to Egypt, the Sumerians naturally influenced Egyptian culture and language, and coincidentally, they shared their secrets of the opium poppy (Pearce, The Plant of Joy). Evidence of this lies in both written and physical forms: examinations of Egyptian tombs have uncovered opium residue, such as in the tomb of

Jensen 2 the fifteenth century BC architect Cha, and in the Therepeautic Papyrus of Thebes, an obscure document mentioning medical conditions, opium is suggested in approximately 700 different remedies (Booth 16). These remedies eventually drifted into Greek medicine: in AD 77, Dioscorides, a Greek physician and botanist, instructed the best way to obtain opium so that one could remedy insomnia. The Greek goddess Demeter, god of the harvest, often has poppies strewn about her alters and the drug can be seen in multiple statues and paintings of her, since opium is believed to have enabled her to forget her sorrows. Homer even suggests the use of opium in the Odyssey, where he tells of the use of nepenthe, an opium preparation that allowed the men mourning the losses of those in the Trojan War to overcome their grief (Booth 18) (Pearce, The Plant of Joy). And when Greek territory was gradually incorporated into the Roman Empire, the Romans also learned of opium, particularly through the great Greek physician Galen, who recorded that opium ...resists poison and venomous bites, cures chronic headache, vertigo, deafness, epilepsy...fever, dropsies, leprosies, the trouble to which women are subject, melancholy and all pestilences," (Booth 19) (Pearce, The Plant of Joy). The infamous Virgil conversely refers to opium as a soporific, or sleep inducer, in the Aeneid and the Georgics, and thus the poppy became a popular symbol of sleep and death; for example, in his statues and paintings the Roman god of sleep, Somnus, carries poppies and an opium horn, a tool used for harvesting the plant (Booth 20). Despite their knowledge of the medicine and their thriving civilizations, however, the Greeks and Romans failed to regard opium as an international trading commodity. The Arabs, conversely, did not. Avicenna, a renown Muhammadan physician and poet, first praised opium in his Canon of Medicine, recommending it in treating dysentery, diarrhea, and various eye diseases. In 632 AD, Arabic doctors and educated men familiar with

Jensen 3 Avicennas writings traveled in the footsteps of their armies, teaching their sciences, religion, mathematics, and medicine to all whom they encountered (Booth 21). They traveled and traded with China, Spain, and east and west Africa, spreading the knowledge of the benefits and revenue found in opium. Eventually the concept of opium trade was introduced to Europe through the Venetians, the center of European trade, when it was first imported along with spices from the Middle East (22). Opium, although occasionally taken for recreational purposes, originated as primarily a medicine in Europe, often referred to as the wonder drug. Many doctors who advocated the drug were themselves addicted, such as Paracelsus who called it the stone of immortality and a Belgian doctor named von Helmont who so often prescribed the drug he was nicknamed Dr. Opiatus, (Booth 24). At first, opium users primarily consisted of the wealthier classes who could afford medical treatment, while the working class were kept ignorant because of their poverty. Very few people cautioned users against the addictive properties of opium (Booth 25), thus its use, form, and dose were experimentally altered by every doctor who prescribed it; for instance, an English physician named Thomas Sydenham developed a mixture of opium and wine in 1660 which he called laudanum, which eventually became the most commonly used form of opium in Europe and America (Davenport-Hines 35). Because of its ability to distort and the perception of sensations and give the user vivid dreams and visual images, opium was an instrumental aspect of the Romantic Period, which dwelled on imagination, spontaneity, passion, emotion, and natural thought. Thus many writers, poets and painters used opium and laudanum to free their minds and explore their imagination, such as Thomas DeQuincy, who idolized opium in his autobiography Confessions of an English Opium-eater, and Samuel Taylor

Jensen 4 Coleridge, who continued to praise opium for giving him literary creativity even while it ruined his character and reputation (Booth 35, 38-44). During the nineteenth century, opium was as widely used in Britain, Western Europe, and America as aspirin is used today. By 1800, opium was employed as a pain killer, a sedative, and an instant cure against fever and diarrhea. Imports rose from 91,000 in 1830 to 280,000 pounds in 1890, while re-exported opium rose from 41,000 pounds to 151,000 pounds (Booth 51). This increase in supply allowed the lower classes the luxury of purchasing opium from the local chemist, which they often did in order to avoid the costly venture of a doctors visit (59). Not only did opium cure physical ailments, it also provided an escape from the misery of the working-class life: men took it to kill memories of long hours in the coal mines while women, who were often employed as domestic servants, came home exhausted and gave it to their fussing children so that they could sleep without being disturbed (60-61). Opium was also widely used by prostitutes in London, who took the drug to counteract the misery of their profession, soothe their muscles, and ward against venereal diseases (62). Despite opiums potential for evil and obvious addictive qualities, concern of long-term addiction was of little interest to the public until Parliament took notice of how many fatal and accidental opiate overdoses were occurring in the 1860s. The 1868 Poisons and Pharmacy Act was established in order to restrict who could sell opium and the means in which they were able to do so, but no serious consequences were set for those who disobeyed (Booth 63-64). Opium addiction was still heavily affecting the British population: In 1881, The British Medical Journal published that the habitual opium-eater can be recognized at a glance... with a withered appearance, yellow complexion, and glassy eye, and his digestive organs are in the highest degree disturbed; he eats nothing...and is a perfect wreck

Jensen 5 both mentally and bodily, (Murrell, 827). But while the Act did little to lessen the overall morality rates from 1868 to 1900, surveys taken by the British Medical Association in 1909 and 1912 discovered most medicines were void of opium, mostly due to the fact that opiates were prescribed for a much more limited range of illnesses than before (Booth 66). Regardless, with the increasing popularity of morphine and heroin in the following years, opium seemed the lesser of three evils and continued to be used recreationally. In the East, China was already harvesting a home-grown crop of opium as well as importing opium from India when the Arab-Chinese trade was established. As with Europe, opium was primarily restricted to the upper-class who could afford it. However, once the vice of smoking opium was introduced to the Chinese through European sailors, opium took the place of prohibited tobacco smoking and the poppy became the entire countrys new addiction (Booth 105). Chinese authorities were quick to recognize and caution against opiums potential harm: Emperor Yung Cheng created an edict in 1729 outlawing the smoking of opium unless used as a medicine, and the punishment for those caught doing otherwise was immensely severe. The edict failed to restrict imports and foreign traders until 1799 when Emperor Kia King prohibited the importation, cultivation, and use of opium, causing opium to become a corrupt and illicit trade for the next seventy-eight years (109-110, 115). No great effort was made to stop the smuggling because so many officials benefited from its growing trade; the annual production increased from 4,494 chests in 1811-1821 to over 30,000 chests in 1835-1839 (120-121). In 1836, a heated discussion emerged concerning whether or not opium should be legalized and taxed in order to procure more revenue, or continued to be restricted in order to limit the nations addiction. Well aware that opium was a staple in international trade, yet desperate to remove corruptness from

Jensen 6 the country, (a difficult task due to the lack of an operational navy and the presence of an enormous coastline) the Chinese government was at an impasse (127-128). Finally, with the Emperors appointment of Lin Tse-hsu, things began to change. In 1839, Lin arrived in Canton, the port city infamous for opium smuggling, where he arrested every popular opium offender and ordered that all importation would cease. At first, this outburst appeared to be exactly like the others preceding it, until Lin created a blockade preventing the traders from leaving Hong Kong until they surrendered their haul of opium (129-131). To Lins delight, the merchants complied and surrendered 20,283 chests of opium, which Lin then disposed of (Fay 142-162). After realizing that in his attempts to rid China of opium he merely increased the price of the drug of the next shipment, Lin sought an opportunity to regain control over the situation, which he found when a group of British sailors killed a Chinese man during a brawl on Chinese soil. Observing the Manchu Penal Code, Lin desired a British life for a Chinese life, and when this was refused, he again went with military force to Canton and Macau, where British merchants were staying with their families. Lin claimed that any foreigner caught ashore was to be shot, and hence, conflict was born (Booth 133). Although it was referred to as the Opium War by The Times on April 25, 1840, what took place was merely a series of a skirmishes in which the British trampled the Chinese due to their superior weaponry, beginning with the Battle of Kowloon and ending with the Treaty of Nanking in August 1842. The Treaty, often referred to by the Chinese as the Unequal Treaty, opened four new Chinese centers of foreign trade in addition to Canton, ceded Hong Kong to Britain, required China to pay for the opium Lin Tse-hsu destroyed during the blockade, and barely nicked the opium issue by stating it is to be hoped [that the] system of

Jensen 7 smuggling which has heretofore been carried on between English and Chinese merchants...will entirely cease, therefore allowing the opium trade to continue (134-135). China, still humiliated by losing the first war and heavily burdened by opium along with the fresh corruption that the drug cast upon the five new treaty ports, continued to hold contempt against Britain (Booth 142). However, nothing rebellious occurred until October 1856, when the impoundment and seizure of The Arrow, a Chinese built yet British owned vessel, prompted a British naval force to attack Chinese forts, and in retaliation, the Chinese torched the Canton factories and massacred passengers aboard a British steamboat, the Thistle (144). So began the second Opium War, or the Arrow War, where the British were joined by the French and the Chinese militia remained no match for the Westerners technology and organization. Upon the attack and capture of the city of Tientsin in 1858, the Treaty of Tientsin was developed and signed, negating new ports for trade and hinting that without the legalizing of opium there would be persistent dissension between the two countries. Although the treaty was locally approved, the Emperors court in Beijing refused to ratify it and instead launched a renewed military attack, in which the British responded by pillaging and burning hundreds of Imperial buildings to the ground. On October 24, 1860, the Convention of Peking was signed, giving foreigners an unhindered access to the Chinese interior and placing a tax on the importation of opium, thus legalizing it (Walsh, The Second Opium War). Despite its legality, however, opium imports began to severely decrease. Ironically, the main cause of the decrease was the adamant protests of British activists who were well aware of the downfall of the Eastern people (Booth 151). Finally, after twenty years of increased opium addiction, government corruption, and agriculture disruption (due to the fact that rice and wheat were considered less valuable than

Jensen 8 the poppy) the Chinese government created a decree in 1906 to prohibit opium and cease its production, importation, and use. The goal was to have opium completely eradicated by 1917, and to achieve this, China reduced its cultivation while India and other foreign countries reduced their imports annually by 10% (157). Still, approximately 40 million people remained addicted to opium. Smuggling and illicit poppy growing continued until the Communists defeated the Kuomintag army in 1949 after a four year civil war, and banned the production, importation and sale of opium and any other narcotic (168). By the end of the 1950s, the addict population dramatically shrank, and in 1960, China was virtually free of drug addiction (169). At last, opium was losing its well-established wrath over China, and, as a result, the rest of the world. Today, the use of opium in its true, undiluted form is rather rare. Its derivates, however, continue to be used throughout all seven continents, and as one can only imagine, often illegally. But can one really be blamed? After all, it is the elixir of the gods.

Booth, Martin. Opium: a History. New York: St. Martin's, 1998. Print. Davenport-Hines, Richard. The Pursuit of Oblivion: A Global History of Narcotics . London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2001. Print. Fay, Peter Ward. The Opium War, 1840-1842. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1975. Print.

Murrell, William. "The Opium Traffic." British Medical Journal (1881): 827-28. Print. Pearce, David. "The Plant of Joy." A Brief History of Opium. BLTC Research, 1999. Web. 10 Nov. 2010. <http://opiates.net/>.

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Walsh, John. "The Second Opium War." Suite101.com: Online Magazine and Writers' Network. 6 Oct. 2004. Web. 13 Nov. 2010. <http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/east_asian_history/ 111392>.