Drugs And Alcohol In The 19th Century

Tim Hugel
February 8, 2011
Schnucker

Diet, Drugs and Alcohol in the 19th Century
In the early 19th century the working class lived on plain food such as bread, butter, potatoes and bacon. Butcher's meat was a luxury. However things greatly improved in the late 19th century. Railways and steamships made it possible to import cheap grain from North America so bread became cheaper. Refrigeration made it possible to import cheap meat from Argentina and Australia. Consumption of sugar also increased. By the end of the 19th century most people were eating much better food. The first fish and chip shops in Britain opened in the 1860s. By the late 19th century they were common in towns and cities. In the late 19th century the first convenience
Tomato ketchup was invented in 1874. Several new biscuits were invented in the 19th century including the Garibaldi (1861), the cream cracker (1885) and the Digestive (1892). Furthermore new sweets were invented during the 19th century including peanut brittle (1890) and liquorice allsorts (1899). For centuries people drank chocolate but the first chocolate bar was made in 1847. Milk chocolate was invented in 1875. These were not uncommon sentiments in the late 19th century, an era when laws to prohibit the use of drugs of all sorts had not yet been formulated. There had long been an association of the use of opium, both smoked and, in the form of laudanum, drunk, with the creative imagination. Experimentation with it was prevalent among the Romantic poets such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Percy Bysshe Shelley. But cocaine was something different again. Prior to 1860, the active ingredient in cocaine was only available in the form of natural coca leaves. The form in which the drug is chiefly used today occurred when the alkaloid present in coca, named cocaine by its discoverer, Dr Albert Niemann, was first isolated. It was then taken up medicinally, and used in herbal tonics such as Vin Mariani, a restorative
Known as “sweet vitriol” and discovered in 1275, ether was originally used for medicinal purposes as a common anaesthetic but quickly became a favourite substitute for whisky. After drinking a glass of water, people would take one drop of ether whilst holding their noses and slamming down another glass of water. This was considered the best way of consuming ether at the time; it’s so volatile that it needs to be washed down to prevent it evaporating. Not only was the ether cheaper than whisky, at one penny per draught from most dealers, but it also got you both drunk and sober much more quickly, allowing 19th Century boozers to feel tipsy several times a day. Another advantage was that ether did not result in a hangover, although it was thought to cause depression. Other symptoms included extreme hysteria and blindness. Chronic abuse of ether could lead someone to believe that they were hearing heavenly music or seeing angels. Yet despite the “violent excitement” that the ether caused, the main danger was people setting fire to themselves when lighting their pipes. This cocktail is the best way to drink ether. Dropping the ether on the strawberry serves to stop it evaporating immediately and though ether