LIFE IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS—WHEN EVERYONE WAS HIGH
OR DRUNK
Food
in the nineteenth century wasn’t as wholesome as man of us think. Contamination
was rife, even among foods prepared at home, on the farm or ranch. Few
understood about germs, bacteria and E. coli. Even then, food was tainted by
foreign substances, chemicals, even fesses. By the
1840s, home-baked bread had died out among the rural poor and those living in
small urban tenements, which were not equipped with ovens.
In 1872 Dr. Hassall, the main health
reformer and a pioneer investigator into food adulteration, demonstrated that
half of the bread he examined had considerable quantities of alum. While not
poisonous itself, Alum could lower the nutritional value of foods by inhibiting
the digestion. The list of poisonous additives from that time reads like the
stock list of a wicked chemist: strychnine, cocculus inculus (both
hallucinogens), and copperas in rum and beer; sulphate of copper in pickles,
bottled fruit, wine, and preserves; lead chromate in mustard and snuff;
sulphate of iron in tea and beer; ferric ferrocynanide, lime sulphate, and
turmeric in Chinese tea; copper carbonate, lead sulphate, bisulphate of
mercury, and Venetian lead in sugar confectionery and chocolate; lead in wine
and cider; all were extensively used and were accumulative in effect,
resulting, over a long period, in chronic gastritis, and, indeed, often fatal
food poisoning.
Dairies watered down their milk then
added chalk to put back the color. Butter, bread and gin often had copper added
to heighten the color. In London, where ice cream was called “hokey-pockey,”
tested examples proved to contain cocci, bacilli, torulae, cotton fiber, lice,
bed bugs, bug's legs, fleas, straw, human hair, cat and dog hair. Such befouled
ice cream caused diphtheria, scarlet fever, diarrhea, and enteric fever. Meat
purchased from butchers often came from diseased animals.
One of the major causes of infant mortality was the widespread
practice of giving children narcotics, especially opium, to keep them quiet.
Laudanum was cheap—about the price of a pint of beer—and its sale was totally
unregulated until late in the century. In fact, the use of opium was widespread
both in town and country. In Manchester, England, it was reported that five out
of six working-class families used opium habitually. One druggist admitted to
selling a half gallon of a very popular cordial, which contained opium,
treacle, water, and spices, as well as five to six gallons of what was
euphemistically called "quietness" every week. Another druggist
admitted to selling four hundred gallons of laudanum annually. At mid-century
at least ten proprietary brands, with Godfrey's Cordial, Steedman's Powder, and
the grandly named Atkinson's Royal Infants Preservative among the most popular,
were available in pharmacies everywhere. Opium in pills and penny sticks was
widely sold and opium-taking in some areas was described as a way of life. Doctors
reported that infants were wasted from it—'shrunk up into little old men,'
'wizened like little monkeys'.
Kept in a drugged state much of the time, infants generally refused to eat
and therefore starved.
Rather than
record a baby’s death as being from severe malnutrition, coroners often listed 'debility
from birth,' or 'lack of breast milk,' as the cause. Addicts were diagnosed as
having "alcoholic inebriety," "morphine inebriety," along
with an endless list of manias: "opiomania,"
"morphinomania," "chloralomania," "etheromania,"
"chlorodynomania," and even "chloroformomania"; and - isms
such as "cocainism" and "morphinism." It wasn’t until WWI
that the term “addiction” came into favor.
Opium was at first believed to be a medical miracle and became the essential
ingredient in innumerable remedies dispensed in Europe and America for the treatment
of diarrhea, dysentery, asthma, rheumatism, diabetes, malaria, cholera, fevers,
bronchitis, insomnia, and pains of any sort. One must remember that at this
time the physician's
cabinet was almost bare of alternative drugs, and a doctor could hardly practice
medicine without it. A great many respectable people imbibed
narcotics and alcohol in the form of patent medicines and even soft drinks. The
reason Coca Cola got its name is because it originally contained a minute
amount of cocaine, thought to be a healthy stimulant, and a shocking number of
“teetotaling” women relied on daily doses of tonics that, unknown to them,
contained as much alcohol as whiskey or gin. Of course it was no secret that
men imbibed alcohol at alarming rates and alcoholism was rampant. The result
was a happy but less than healthy population.
So, is it any wonder the nineteenth century became known as “the good old
days”?
Charlene Raddon is the award-winning
author of five historical romance novels set in the American West. Three of
these are now available as e-books. Her latest, To Have And To Hold touches on the subject of alcoholism. Her
paperbacks can be found through used book stores. Her e-books are available at
Amazon, B&N, Smashwords and other e-book stores. To Have and to Hold can be purchased here:
Taming Jenna Release Party and Giveaway! By Western Historical
Romance Author Charlene Raddon. Comment on this blog, then hop to all the other
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