Journal Article: Victorian Opium Eating: Responses to Opiate Use in Nineteenth-Century England

I have been focusing my research on the use of opium in medicine. The journal article Victorian Opium Eating: Responses to Opiate Use in Nineteenth-Century England by Virginia Berridge discusses the evolution of opium use and the views towards it during the nineteenth-century.

The beginning of the article discusses the free use of opium during the beginning of the nineteenth-century. Berridge discusses how at the start of the nineteenth century opium preparations were available for anyone to purchase at grocers’ and general stores. The article states that until 1868 any person qualified or not could buy and sell opium. The article talks about the different uses of opium preparation. It was recommended for migraines, earaches, heart disease, children’s teething, influenza, and many other things. Berridge states that the way in which opiates were sold and used in the first half of the century makes it sufficiently clear that society in general had no particular fears about their use.

The second half of the article discusses the shift in people’s attitude towards opium and the causes of this shift. The 1868 Pharmacy Act put the first restrictions on opium use. The article talks about how the growing increase in death by opium poisoning led to a belief that opium use and availability should be limited. The article also mentions that because there wasn’t valid distinction between medicinal and recreational opium use there was an argument about how to ethically restrict opium use.

Berridge, Virginia. “Victorian Opium Eating: Responses to Opiate Use in Nineteenth-Century England.” Victorian Studies (1978): 437-61. Print.