Drugs, Alcohol and Addiction in the Long Nineteenth Century

This collection captures key themes and issues in the broad history of addiction and vice in the Anglo-American world. Focusing on the long nineteenth-century, the volumes consider how scientific, social, and cultural experiences with drugs, alcohol, addiction, gambling, and prostitution varied around the world. What might be considered vice, or addiction could be interpreted in various ways, through various lenses, and such activities were interpreted differently depending upon the observer: the medical practitioner; the evangelical missionary; the thrill seeking bon-vivant, and the concerned government commissioner, to name but a few. For example, opium addiction in middle class households resulting from medical treatment was judged much differently than Chinese opium smoking by those in poverty or poor living conditions in North American work camps on the west coast, or on the streets of Soho. This collection will assemble key documents representing both the official and general view of these various activities, providing readers with a cross section of interpretations and a solid grounding in the material that shaped policy change, cultural interpretation, and social action.

Daniel Malleck is Associate Professor in the Department of Health Sciences, Brock University, Canada

Volume 4: Efforts to control, restrict, and prohibit: Drugs Part 1. The Chinese opium trade: growing concern - Lord Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 'Suppression of the Opium Trade', Debates of the House of Commons, 1843, Vol 68, pp. 362-368, 403-405. - Sir Robert Peel, 'Response to Lord Ashley', Debates of the House of Commons, 1843, Vol 68, 461-68. Part 2. The debates: To trade or not to trade - Arthur Moule, 'The Responsibility of the Church as Regards the Opium Traffic with China', (Published for SSOT by London: Dyer Brothers, Amen Corners, ca. 1881), pp. 9-24. - Rutherford Alcock, 'Opium and Common Sense', Nineteenth Century, 10, 1881, 854-68. - Frederick Storrs-Turner, 'Opium and England's Duty', Nineteenth Century, LX, February 1882, 242-53. - Alexander J. Arbuthnot, 'The Opium Controversy', Nineteenth Century, LXI, March 1882, 403-13. - W. J. Moore, 'Article IV' and 'Article V', The Other Side of the Opium Question (London: J. and A. Churchill, 1882), pp. 61-95. Part 3. The campaign literature - Anon, Poppies: A Talk with English Boys and Girls About Opium (London and Aylesbury: Hazell, Watson and Viney printers, n.d.), pp. 3-14. - Our National Sin Against the Government and People of China: How Much Longer are we to Continue Our Wrong-Doing?, (London, Morgan & Scott, ca., 1906). - The Opium Curse: An Appeal from Chinese Christians to the Churches of Great Britain, Society for the Suppression of the Opium trade Anti-opium tracts new series No 5. (London, 1889]. - 'Introduction', trans. Rev. J. W. Paxton, William H. Park (ed.), in Opinions of over 100 physicians on the Use of Opium in China (Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1899), pp. v-vii. Part 4. Examining and problematizing the Chinese sojourner - US Congress, Report of the Joint Special Committee to Investigate Chinese Immigration, February 27 1877, pp. 60-61, 126, 130-131, 133-136. - Report of the Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration (Ottawa, 1885), Commissioner Grey's Report, and evidence from San Francisco and Victoria, BC, pp. lv-lx, 14-15, 54-59, 91-94, 150-151 - Willard B. Farwell, 'Preface', and 'The Opium Habit', in The Chinese at Home and Abroad (San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft, 1885), pp. 3-5, 94-103. - Anon "Chinese in Australia" The Bulletin (21 Aug 1886): 11-15 - Allen S. Williams, The Demon of the Orient and His Satellite Fiends of the Joints: Our Opium Smokers as they are in Tartar Hells and American Paradises (New York, 1883), 9-28, 88-91, 138-140. - Frederick J. Masters, 'The Opium Traffic in California', Chautauquan, 24, 1896, 54-61. - Tart Quong, Plea for the Abolition of the Importation of Opium (Sydney: John Sands Printer, 1887), pp. 3-8. - Official report of Anti-Opium Demonstration held at the Congregational Church, Pitt St., Sydney, Thursday, April 5th, 1894 (Sydney: T. J. Houghton & Co, 1894), pp. 1-12. - Extracts from Annual Police Reports Relating to Chinese Opium Use and the Opium Traffic in Witswatersrand, the Transvaal, (1907-9). Part 5. Investigating the domestic drug problem - B. H. Hartwell, 'Report on the Sale and Use of Opium in Massachusetts', Twentieth Annual Report of the State Board of Health of Massachusetts (Boston: Wright & Potter Printing Co., 1889), pp. 136-58. - Samuel Hopkins Adams, 'The Nostrum Evil' and 'Aftermath', in The Great American Fraud, 4th ed. (Chicago: Press of the American Medical Association, 1907), pp. 3-11, 170-76. - British Medical Association, Secret Remedies: What They Cost and What They Contain (London: British Medical Association, 1909), pp. v-vii, 1-2, 9-11, 20-21, 37, 42, 50, 66-67, 76-77, 83-86, 105, 114, 117-119, 124-125, 130, 134, 142, 147-49, 158, 162, 170-171. - The Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, Report of the Royal Commission on Secret Drugs, Cures, and Foods Vol (Sydney: Printer of the State of New South Wales, 1907), pp. 1-5, 426-31. Part 6. Investigation and legislation - U.S. House of Representatives, 'Letter from the Secretary of the Treasury Submitting a Draught and Recommending the Passage of a Bill to Prohibit the Importation of Opium in Certain Forms', House Ex. Document no. 79, 50th Cong., 1st sess. (1888). - Final Report of the Royal Commission on Opium, volume VI, (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1894-95), pp. 15-23. - Wilbur F. Crafts, 'General Survey of the Problem', in Crafts and Crafts (eds), Protection of the Native Races Against Intoxicants and Opium (New York, Chicago, Toronto: Fleming H. Revell Co, 1900), pp. 13-29. - 'Report of the Committee Appointed by the Philippine Commission to Investigate the Use of Opium and the Traffic Therein', US Senate Doc No 265 (1906), pp. 3-4, 19-21, 52-55. - W. L. Mackenzie King, Report... on The Need for the Suppression of the Opium Traffic in Canada (Ottawa: S. E. Dawson, 1908), pp. 5-13. - Charles B. Towns, 'The Peril of the Drug Habit and the Need of Restrictive Legislation', Century Magazine, 84, 1912, 580-587. - 'The Prevalence of the Morphin and Cocain Habits', JAMA, 60, 1913, 1363-64. Part 7. International Action - Report of the International Opium Commission, Shanghai, China, February 1 to February 26 1909, Vol 1. Report of the Proceedings (Shanghai: North China Daily News & Herald, 1909), pp. 9-12, 81-84. - Hamilton Wright, 'Report on the International Opium Commission and on the Opium Problem as seen within the United States and its Possession', Senate Document No 377, United States Congressional Series No 5657 (1910), pp. 53-75. - 'Report of the International Opium Convention', signed at The Hague, January 23 1912. League of Nations Treaty Series paper No. 122. - Report of the British Delegates to the International Opium Conference held at the Hague, December 1911-January 1912. British Parliament Command Paper No. 11 (1912) (London: Harrison and Sons, 1912), pp. 1-8, 10-27. - Hamilton Wright, Report to the Secretary of State on the Second International Opium Conference by the American Delegates: Hamilton Wright, Lloyd Bryce, Gerrit John Kollen Department of State 31 July 1913.