Abstract
The dawn of the modern psychoactive pharmacopeia is described in this chapter, and how it grew up alongside Temperance movements, techno-utopianism, and the gathering strength of social purity campaigns. Chloral hydrate and chloroform are the centerpieces of the chapter. Medical men, patients, and the public began to understand how different synthetic narcotics were from naturally derived ones. Adulteration of alcohol as a worry is described. The rise of concern about coerced intoxication as a consolidated concern is described here. The now-forgotten male victims of drugging in the context of robbery and forced labor are discussed.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Samuel Butler, 1898 Translation of Homer’s Odyssey. Gutenberg.org.
- 2.
T.E. Jordan, “The Keys of Paradise: Godfrey’s cordial and children in Victorian Britain,” Journal of the Royal Society of Health. vol. 107, no. 1, 1987, 19–22.
- 3.
Harry Levine and Craig Reinarman, “What’s Behind ‘Jar Wars’?” The Nation, March 28, 1987. Retrieved January 16, 2016. http://www.thenation.com/article/whats-behind-jar-wars/.
- 4.
Rush, already known and widely respected as a Philadelphia doctor, developed more than a few controversial views about bloodletting (he was an enthusiast), calomel mercury treatments, and why “negros” were darker in skin color than whites, attributing “negroidism” to a disease process. Nonetheless, he held a keen interest in humanitarian issues and was an early abolitionist.
- 5.
E. Behr, Prohibition: Thirteen Years that Changed America. (New York: Arcade Publishing, 1996).
- 6.
Joseph Gusfield, Symbolic Crusade: Status Politics and the American Temperance Movement, (Urbana: University of Illinois Press), 1986.
- 7.
Ruth Bordin, Woman and Temperance: the Quest for Power and Liberty, 1873–1900. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press), 1981. Jordin, 1987.
- 8.
Anonymous, Goffiana: A Review of the Life and Writings of John B. Gough, (Boston: Ruggles and Company), 1845.
- 9.
W.W. Spooner, Cyclopaedia of Temperance and Prohibition, (New York: Funk and Wagnalls), 1891.
- 10.
Dr. F.R. Lees, Textbook of Temperance, (New York: Stearns), 1869. Available at https://archive.org/details/permanenttemper00socigoog.
- 11.
Garrett Oliver, “Adulteration,” The Oxford Companion to Beer, (New York: Oxford University Press), 14–16.
- 12.
American Temperance Society, Permanent Temperance Documents of the American Temperance Society, (Boston: Seth Bliss), 1835. Available at https://archive.org/details/permanenttemper00socigoog.
- 13.
Bee Wilson, Swindled: the Dark History of Food Fraud, from Poisoned Candy to Counterfeit Coffee, (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 2008, 36–39, 47–60.
- 14.
The laws in Europe against adulteration were aimed at manufacturers, and sometimes at importers who were questioned as to whether some plant species had a legitimate use. The Levant nut, for instance (Cocculus indicus), was imported into Britain in the 1870s in enough quantities to raise eyebrows. This fruit of the Anamirta cocculus plant was used to strengthen beer.
- 15.
Now available online at: http://www.attackingthedevil.co.uk/pmg/tribute/mt1.php. Retrieved January 15, 2016.
- 16.
See Victor Pierce Jones, Saint or Sensationalist: The Story of W. T. Stead, (Chichester: Gooday), 1988.
- 17.
Elaine Frantz Parsons, Manhood Lost: Fallen Drunkards and Redeeming Women in the Nineteenth Century United States. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press), 2009.
- 18.
New York Times, “The License Systems,” April 28, 1851, 2. Via New York Times Archives.
- 19.
Stephen Snelders, Charles Kaplan, and Toine Pieters, “On Cannabis, Chloral Hydrate, and Career Cycles of Psychotropic Drugs in Medicine,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 80: 1, 2006, 95–114. The cycle model is named for Max Seige, who first observed the cycle in 1912, at the height of psychotropic innovation.
- 20.
Benjamin Ward Richardson, Medical Times and Gazette, February 1871. Cited by Louis Lewin, in The untoward effects of drugs: a pharmacological and clinical manual, 2nd ed., (Detroit: George S. Davis), 1883.
- 21.
Lewin, 1883.
- 22.
Gordon Stables, “The Confessions of an English Chloral-Eater” Belgravia, June, 1875, 179–190.
- 23.
Linda Stratmann, Chloroform: the Quest for Oblivion, (Gloucestershire, UK: Sutton), 2003.
- 24.
New York Daily Times, “Robberies by Chloroform,” May 15, 1855, 4. Via New York Times Archive.
- 25.
John Snow, “A Letter to the Right Honourable Lord Campbell, Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Queen’s Bench, on the Clause Respecting Chloroform in the Proposed Prevention of Offences Bill,” (London: John Churchill), 1851, 9–13.
- 26.
James Y. Simpson, Notice of a new anaesthetic agent, as a substitute for sulphuric ether in surgery and midwifery, (Edinburgh: Sutherland and Knox), 1847.
- 27.
Charles Sprengler Greaves, Lord Campbell’s Acts for the Further Improving of the Administration of Criminal Justice and the Better Prevention of Offences, (London: Benning and Company), 1851, 39.
- 28.
Snow, 1851.
- 29.
John W.R. McIntyre, “The Criminal Use of Chloroform Administered by Inhalation,” Medicine and Law, no. 7, 1988, 195–202; J. P. Payne, “The criminal use of chloroform,” Anaesthesia, 1998, no. 53, 685–690.
- 30.
Stratmann, 41.
- 31.
James Y. Simpson, “Discovery of A New Anaesthetic Agent More Efficient Than Sulphuric Ether,” Lancet, 2, 1847, 549.
- 32.
Mary Poovey, “‘Scenes of an Indelicate Character’: Medical ‘Treatment’ of Victorian Women,” Representations, 14, Spring, 1986, 137–168.
- 33.
Poovey, 1986.
- 34.
R.A. Strickland and J.F. Butterworth, “Sexual Dreaming during Anesthesia: Early Case Histories (1849–1888) of the Phenomenon,” Anesthesia, no. 106, 2007, 1232–1236.
- 35.
PA Criminal Code 3121. Corroboration was, at the time, required under many states’ sexual assault laws, including Pennsylvania. The corroboration requirement did not see widespread repeal until the 1970s; Pennsylvania removed its in 1976. See Cassia Spohn and Julie Horney, Rape law reform: a grassroots revolution and its impact, (New York: Springer), 1992, 74.
- 36.
T.K. Collins, JR., ed. (1855) Trial and Conviction or Dr. Stephen T. Beale with the letters of Chief Justice Lewis, and Judges Black and Woodward, on his case. Interesting ether cases, and letters of Prof. Gibson … & c. (Philadelphia: T.K. Collins), 1855, 6. https://archive.org/details/55220150R.nlm.nih.gov. Retrieved January 16, 2016.
- 37.
Collins, 13.
- 38.
Anthony S. Wohl, Endangered Lives: Public Health in Victorian Britain, London: Methuen, 1984, 13.
- 39.
Collins, 13.
- 40.
Benjamin Ward Richardson, “Chloral and other narcotics,” Littell’s Living Age, v142, #1835, 1879, 425–438. (Reprinted from the Contemporary Review.)
- 41.
British Medical Journal, “Recent Studies on Therapeutics. I. Picrotoxine and its Properties,” January 18, 1880, 17, 96–97; allegations against brewers: H.B. Cornwall, “Adulteration of Beers,” Public Health Papers and Reports, Volume 10. American Public Health Association, 1884.
- 42.
NY 4 Laws 1884, ch. 391, 889. Curiously, the offense was downgraded to a misdemeanor by 1909. The Penal Code of the State of New York: In Force December 1, 1882, as Amended by Laws of 1882, 1883, 1884, 1885, with Notes of Decisions and a Full Index, 1885. (NY Article 142, § 1482, in 1894 it was § 447). Appears to have been repealed as redundant or obsolete pursuant to chapter 5 of the Laws of 1889, those relevant laws now embodied in Penal Code or Code of Criminal Procedure. Documents of the Assembly of the State of New York, Volume 13, 1890. Refers to the original law as Military chapter 391, Laws of 1864, felony. “Drugging person for enlistment. A person who administers any drug or stupefying substance to another, with the intent, while such person ie under the influence thereof, to induce such person to enter the military or naval service of the United States, of this state, or any other state, country or government, is guilty of a misdemeanor. NY Penal Code, J 447.” The auxiliary businesses like boarding houses and bars that catered to sailors and wharfmen, who were often the conduits for the crimps, did constitute a fairly strong lobby. Nonetheless, by 1915, Federal law set minimum standards for the contracts, wages, and circumstances of merchant marine labor.
- 43.
Ronald Hope, Poor Jack: the perilous history of the merchant seaman, London: Chatham, 2001, 249–254
- 44.
Stan Hugill, Sailortown, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967; quoted in Hope, 2001, 252.
- 45.
Solomon Northup, Twelve Years a Slave: Narrative of Solomon Northup, (Auburn, NY: Derby and Miller), 1853. http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/northup/menu.html. Retrieved January 16, 2016.
- 46.
H.H. Kynett, D.G. Brinton, S. W. Butler, eds. Philadelphia Medical and Surgical Reporter, Volume 50, Number 115, January–July 1884, 596–597.
- 47.
Louisville Medical News, “Cases of Alleged Drugging,” Vols. I and II, 1876, 228.
- 48.
Pamela Donovan, No Way of Knowing: Crime, Urban Legends, and the Internet, (New York: Routledge), 2004, 141–142.
- 49.
“Snuff” in most cases refers to pulverized tobacco with fragrance. Of course, nicotine is a stimulant, so alone it would be a poor choice for predatory use. The term “snuff” also sometimes refers to any finely powdered substance.
- 50.
Herbert Asbury, Gem of the Prairie, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf), 1940.
- 51.
Herbert Asbury, The Gangs of New York, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf), 1927.
- 52.
Cecil Adams, “The Straight Dope: What’s in a Mickey Finn?” Chicago Reader, January 18, 1991; James A. Inciardi, “The Changing Life of Mickey Finn: Some Notes On Chloral Hydrate Down Through the Ages,” Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 11, no. 3, 1977, 591–596.
- 53.
“Master identity” is a term used by sociologists, and others, usually to describe elements of a person’s social identity that are dominant; it is here used to describe how a drug can have many uses but nonetheless have a singular identity.
- 54.
Regina Kunzel, Fallen Women, Problem Girls: Unmarried Women and the Professionalization of Social Work, 1890–1945, (New Haven: Yale University Press), 1993.
- 55.
Or, in some cases, being “merely” physically dominated during rape. The law at that time required women to fight an attacker “to the utmost” and, in some states, show visible signs of physical struggle or produce independent corroboration. It was an extremely high burden that discouraged sexual assault reporting well into the late twentieth century. See Susan Estrich, Real Rape: How the Legal System Victimizes Women Who Say No, (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press), 1988. It may have shaped the way in which women interpreted rape victimization in relationship to legal recourse as well.
- 56.
Kunzel, 104–105.
- 57.
Charlton Edholm, Traffic in Girls and Work of Rescue Missions. Chicago: The Temple, 1899.
- 58.
Edholm, 16.
- 59.
An explanation of why the police were not fetched to the scene of alleged captivity often fails to accompany such rescue claims. It perhaps preserves the aura of powerful conspiracy and mystery; it obfuscates the push and pull of the girl’s involvement, while simultaneously restraining from accusing the police of complicity.
- 60.
Kathy Peiss, “‘Charity Girls’ and City Pleasures: Historical Notes on Working-Class Sexuality, 1880–1920.,” In J. Scanlon, ed., The Gender and Consumer Culture Reader, (New York: New York University Press), 2000.
- 61.
Rosen, Ruth, The Lost Sisterhood: Prostitution in America, 1900–1918, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982; Walkowitz, Judith R., City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 1992.
- 62.
“Third place” is a term coined by Ray Oldenburg (1989) in The Great Good Place. It means neither home nor work but third places to socialize, which Oldenburg sees in decline.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2016 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Donovan, P. (2016). Chloral and Its Sisters: Synthetic Genesis and Parallel Demon. In: Drink Spiking and Predatory Drugging. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57517-3_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57517-3_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-57516-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-57517-3
eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)