High Society, Wellcome Collection | reviews, news & interviews
High Society, Wellcome Collection
High Society, Wellcome Collection
A mind-expanding trip through the history of drug-taking across cultures
Friday, 12 November 2010
Just say no? 'Morphinomane' by Eugene Grasset, 1897
It’s amazing what you might have found in your average bathroom cabinet 100 years ago. For those niggling aches and pains, what could be more effective than a bottle of Bayer’s Heroin Hydrochloride? Or how about a soothing spoonful of Sydenham’s Laudanum? If you’re simply in need of a quick pick-me-up, a sip or three of Hall’s Coca Wine – the “Elixir of Life” (basically liquid cocaine) - might put a jolly spring in your step. Oh, and don’t forget those cocaine eyedrops after a particularly long day staring at the officer ledger.
It’s amazing what you might have found in your average bathroom cabinet 100 years ago. For those niggling aches and pains, what could be more effective than a bottle of Bayer’s Heroin Hydrochloride? Or how about a soothing spoonful of Sydenham’s Laudanum? If you’re simply in need of a quick pick-me-up, a sip or three of Hall’s Coca Wine – the “Elixir of Life” (basically liquid cocaine) - might put a jolly spring in your step. Oh, and don’t forget those cocaine eyedrops after a particularly long day staring at the officer ledger.
Self-experimentation among doctors, psychiatrists and scientists was, in fact, commonplace
Explore topics
Share this article
Add comment
The future of Arts Journalism
You can stop theartsdesk.com closing!
We urgently need financing to survive. Our fundraising drive has thus far raised £33,000 but we need to reach £100,000 or we will be forced to close. Please contribute here: https://gofund.me/c3f6033d
And if you can forward this information to anyone who might assist, we’d be grateful.
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
more Visual arts
Help to give theartsdesk a future!
Support our GoFundMe appeal
Electric Dreams: Art and Technology Before the Internet, Tate Modern review - an exhaustive and exhausting show
Flashing lights, beeps and buzzes are diverting, but quickly pall
ARK: United States V by Laurie Anderson, Aviva Studios, Manchester review - a vessel for the thoughts and imaginings of a lifetime
Despite anticipating disaster, this mesmerising voyage is full of hope
Vanessa Bell, MK Gallery review - diving into and out of abstraction
A variation of styles as the Bloomsbury artist breaks free from Victorian mores
Lygia Clark: The I and the You, Sonia Boyce: An Awkward Relation, Whitechapel Gallery review - breaking boundaries
Two artists, 50 years apart, invite audience participation
Mike Kelley: Ghost and Spirit, Tate Modern review - adolescent angst indefinitely extended
The artist who refused to grow up
Monet and London, Courtauld Gallery review - utterly sublime smog
Never has pollution looked so compellingly beautiful
Michael Craig-Martin, Royal Academy review - from clever conceptual art to digital decor
A career in art that starts high and ends low
Van Gogh: Poets & Lovers, National Gallery review - passions translated into paint
Turmoil made manifest
Peter Kennard: Archive of Dissent, Whitechapel Gallery review - photomontages sizzling with rage
Fifty years of political protest by a master craftsman
Dominique White: Deadweight, Whitechapel Gallery review - sculptures that seem freighted with history
Dunked in the sea to give them a patina of age, sculptures that feel timeless
Bill Viola (1951-2024) - a personal tribute
Video art and the transcendent
Comments
...