The Impact of Opium Use in Nineteenth-Century England :: European Europe History

The wallop of Opium Use in Nineteenth-Century England IntroductionEvidence from contemporary newspapers and other sources call forth that by the mid nineteenth-century England was beginning to realize the erudition of its opium problem. Opium had been introduced by the Arabs slightly the sixteenth-century, England began to seriously trade it around the late seventeenth- century. English citizens, by this time, by its exploits, were using the drug for medical reasons. However, most of these new cures all utilize opium in some form. No matter in which, form it was used, opium had notwithstanding one effect. It gave a feeling of euphoria. From the opium pill to the plaster or its alkaloids it was a highly addictive drug, a new drug free from governing constrains and open to public sale. In the early historic period opium was merely another(prenominal) piece of cargo to be traded. The Beginnings of The Problem Opium had first arrived in capital of the United Kingdom as a new med icinal trade product. It was new, compact, easily transported, and non-perishable. swop with China proved very profitable and flourished for more than twenty years uninterrupted, until in 1835 China passed its first laws prohibiting the importation of opium (1). In the years side by side(p) this prohibition, England responded simply by shifting the drop off points to other ports in China. China resisted these efforts, by England, to continue trade and began attacking their ships. These acts were seen as self-assertive in the eyes of the English and the first opium war resulted. The war end with the pact of Nanking, which ceded China to Britain. The second opium war between 1856 and 1858 ended with the treaty of Tientsin (2). These two wars were prime examples of commercial imperialism, not only through the inception of treaty ports but through British control of Chinese customs which the 1842 treaty established, and continuing opium trade without restraint (3). All these acts on the give away of British and the Chinese prove that there was real awareness of the depth of the opium problem. Medicinal Uses During the years between and after both opium wars, England was developing more uses for opium. There were opium plasters, pills, cough drops, lozenges, troches, and scores of other the applications. Opium could be bought alongside food for thought and spirits. Usually the opium was originally bought for some kind of ailment, and consequently the addiction would begin. virtuoso physician noted that he prescribed an opium plaster to a green girl, and discovered that three weeks later she was still using it (4).