What is laudanum?
Laudanum is a type of opium drug, made into an alcohol solution or tincture, and occasionally it can refer to any tincture or preparation that contains opium as its main ingredient. Though many commonly think of laudanum as the drug choice of the Victorians, and it was, the benefits of the drug were first noted by the Swiss alchemist, Phillip von Hohenheim. He later took the name Paracelsus, in reference to a first century Roman who wrote a famous tract on medicine. It was the Swiss Paracelsus, and not the Roman of the 1st century CE, who, in the 1500s, experimented with laudanum and described its uses. He gave the name laudanum to this opium tincture because of the extraordinary benefits of the drug. Laudare in Latin, means to praise. Unfortunately while Paracelsus praised the wonders of the drug, he did not recognize the highly addictive nature of opium, from which modern drugs like morphine and the street drug heroin derive. Even though by the 19th century many were becoming aware o
