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Opium Eating and the Working Class in the Nineteenth Century: The Public and Official Reaction
Author(s) -
Berridge Virginia
Publication year - 1978
Publication title -
british journal of addiction to alcohol and other drugs
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.424
H-Index - 193
eISSN - 1360-0443
pISSN - 0007-0890
DOI - 10.1111/j.1360-0443.1978.tb00129.x
Subject(s) - opium , hysteria , irrationality , working class , presentation (obstetrics) , consumption (sociology) , middle class , class (philosophy) , social class , anxiety , psychology , sociology , psychoanalysis , gender studies , law , psychiatry , political science , social science , medicine , philosophy , politics , rationality , surgery , epistemology
The paper analyses the contemporary rumour and hysteria which overlay much discussion of working‐class opiate consumption. General middle‐class fears arising from social dislocation, the reaction to the temperance movement, the sensational presentation of opium eating by the Romantics, the Indo‐Chinese trade and the agitation against it; and the professional aspirations of pharmacists, all contributed to the irrationality with which much evidence was assessed.