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The Rise and Fall of Laudanum: The Drug That Built The Gilded Age (late 1870s - late 1890s)
You Tube ^ | 17 DEC 2025 | After Hours History Channel

Posted on 02/13/2026 2:16:16 PM PST by Texan4Life

This is the untold story of America's first opioid crisis—and how Purdue Pharma copied the exact same playbook 120 years later. The corporate tactics, the targeting of women, the media manipulation, the blocked regulations. Every strategy that created the modern opioid epidemic was perfected in the Gilded Age, which was the period from about the late 1870s to the late 1890s, which occurred between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive Era.

CHAPTERS: 0:00 - The Drug You Could Buy Next to Flour 4:08 - Part One: God's Own Medicine 9:44 - Part Two: The Soldier's Disease 15:12 - Part Three: The Hidden Epidemic 23:38 - Part Four: The Empire of Fraud 31:08 - Part Five: The Red Clause Conspiracy 35:05 - Part Six: The Politics of Who Matters 38:56 - Part Seven: The Opium Eaters 47:14 - Part Eight: The Great American Fraud 55:39 - Part Nine: The Beginning of the End 1:07:43 - Part Ten: The Monument 1:12:30 - Conclusion: The Lesson We Keep Forgetting

(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...


TOPICS: Health/Medicine; History; Science; Society
KEYWORDS: drug; gildedage; godsgravesglyphs; laudanum; opium
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A sobering History about the after effects of war, and about the politics of "medicine."
1 posted on 02/13/2026 2:16:16 PM PST by Texan4Life
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To: Texan4Life

Thanks for posting


2 posted on 02/13/2026 2:59:35 PM PST by Tell It Right (1 Thessalonians 5:21 -- Put everything to the test, hold fast to that which is true.)
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To: StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1ofmanyfree; 21twelve; 24Karet; 2ndDivisionVet; 31R1O; ...
Chloral hydrate is another drug from that period. It was used recreationally by the PRB painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti. A drink mixing chloral hydrate with whiskey to mask the taste was known as 'Mickey Finn'.

3 posted on 02/13/2026 2:59:38 PM PST by SunkenCiv (TDS -- it's not just for DNC shills anymore -- oh, wait, yeah it is.)
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To: Texan4Life

If any of yall have any freepmail please lol


4 posted on 02/13/2026 3:17:27 PM PST by wardaddy (If u hate Trump you’re stupid or clueless what’s going on)
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To: Texan4Life

“Laudanum was a 10 percent solution of opium powder in alcohol, widely used to treat everything from pain and insomnia to female disorders. It was even used to quiet crying babies.” Could a person buy some now?


5 posted on 02/13/2026 3:37:01 PM PST by kawhill (Dywedwch Wrthym + Add translation Welsh-English dictionary 'Tell Us')
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To: kawhill

My Mum told of how her father kept a bottle of it in the house for emergencies, this was 1940s Britain


6 posted on 02/13/2026 3:39:21 PM PST by Jeff Vader
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To: kawhill

” Could a person buy some now?”

Sure, just depends on who you know


7 posted on 02/13/2026 4:23:17 PM PST by algore ( )
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To: algore

https://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/article32158749.html


8 posted on 02/13/2026 4:27:57 PM PST by algore ( )
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To: SunkenCiv

Chloral is what Lily Bart was taking in “The House of Mirth.”

She came to a bad end.


9 posted on 02/13/2026 4:55:01 PM PST by x
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To: kawhill

it’s just straight ‘tincture of opium’ now


10 posted on 02/13/2026 4:57:58 PM PST by Bob434 (NYWAYS)
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To: Texan4Life

very interesting

the Cheney family acquired money and power by trading in opium


11 posted on 02/13/2026 6:30:09 PM PST by SisterK (to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly)
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To: kawhill

:: Could a person buy some now? ::

At one time, Imodium A-D was Class II OTC (ID & signature).
That contained Opium.
Not certain of today’s version.


12 posted on 02/14/2026 3:35:10 AM PST by Cletus.D.Yokel (The Democrats' official policy is now, “Hate, Violence and Murder". Change my mind.)
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To: Texan4Life

I had never heard of it until I watched “The Shootist” with John Wayne.
Just before his death from lung cancer.


13 posted on 02/14/2026 9:41:06 AM PST by Zathras
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To: Zathras

In the movie “Tombstone.” Wyatt Earp’s woman was addicted to Laudanum.


14 posted on 02/14/2026 2:51:48 PM PST by Texan4Life
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To: Texan4Life

Easily replicated today but why bother? What would you be looking for?


15 posted on 02/14/2026 2:59:01 PM PST by AppyPappy (They don't call you a Nazi because they think you are one. They do it to justify violence. )
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To: kawhill
Could a person buy some now?

Talk to Ali.

You can't say "no".

16 posted on 02/14/2026 3:00:18 PM PST by Sirius Lee ("Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.)
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To: SunkenCiv

The “Good Ol’ Days...”

On June 22, 1918, four people were arrested, and over one hundred waiters were taken into custody over the apparent widespread practice of poisoning by waiters in Chicago.

Guests who tipped poorly were given “Mickey Finn powder” in their food or drinks. Chemical analysis showed that it contained antimony potassium tartrate, also called “emetic tartar”; which in addition to causing vomiting, headaches, dizziness and depression, can be lethal in large quantities. Two bartenders were arrested for selling the powder at the bar at the waiters’ union headquarters, and W. Stuart Wood and his wife were arrested for manufacturing the powder. Wood sold packets of it for 20 cents and referred to it as “Mickey Finn Powder” in a letter to union bartender John Millian. A follow-up article mentions the pursuit of a man named Jean Crones, who was believed to be responsible for poisoning over 100 people at a banquet held at the University Club of Chicago at which three people died.
-Wiki


17 posted on 02/14/2026 3:00:22 PM PST by Texan4Life
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To: Texan4Life

The victims sound like a bunch of whiners. In my day, we had to drink down one of those just to get in the schoolhouse. After walking five miles to school. All weather. No shoes. 😊 Thanks T4L.


18 posted on 02/14/2026 3:45:02 PM PST by SunkenCiv (TDS -- it's not just for DNC shills anymore -- oh, wait, yeah it is.)
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