Drugging France Mind Altering Medicine in the Long

Nineteenth Century

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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Drugging France : mind-altering medicine in the long nineteenth century
/ Sara E. Black.
Names: Black, Sara E., author.
Series: Intoxicating histories ; 5.
Description: Series statement: Intoxicating histories ; 5 | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20220227047 | Canadiana (ebook) 2022022711X |
ISBN 9780228011644 (paper) | ISBN 9780228011439 (cloth) | ISBN 9780228012511
(ePDF) | ISBN 9780228012528 (ePUB)
Subjects: LCSH: Psychotropic drugs—France—History—19th century. |
LCSH: Psychopharmacology—France—History—19th century. | LCSH: Drugs
of abuse—France—History—19th century. | LCSH: Narcotics—France—
History—19th century.
Classification: LCC RM315 .B536 2022 | DDC 615.7/88094409034—dc23
 CONTENTS

Figures vii
Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 3
{ 1 } Psychotropic Pharmaceuticals 17
{ 2 } Self-Experimentation 64
{ 3 } Drugging the Mind 117
{ 4 } Sex and Drugs 184
{ 5 } Economies of Pain 230
Conclusion 281

Notes 285
Bibliography 349
Index 377
 FIGURES

1.1 Opium imports for domestic consumption in France, 1840–1914. 20

1.2 The hydraulic factory of the Maison Centrale de Droguerie at
Noisiel-sur-Marne. Ménier & Cie, Maison Centrale de Droguerie,
Prix courant général (Paris: Plon Frères, 1854). Courtesy of
Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire de Santé (Paris), https://www.
biusante.parisdescartes.fr/histmed/medica/page?pharma_
res029851&p=4. 32
1.3 The Saint-Denis factory of the Pharmacie Centrale. Dorvault,
Catalogue pharmaceutique ou prix courant général de la Pharmacie
Centrale de France et de la Maison générale de droguerie Ménier
reuniés (Paris, 1877). Courtesy of Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire
de Santé (Paris), https://www.biusante.parisdescartes.fr/histmed/
medica/page?pharma_res019666&p=7. 38
1.4 Charles Maurin, Esculape, 12 March 1892, lithograph, 30 x 25cm,
DC617 (2)- FOL. 777, Bibliothèque Nationale de France. 46
1.5 Morphine consumed in Paris hospitals, 1855–85. 54
1.6 Opium consumed in Paris hospitals, 1855–85. 55
1.7 Wholesale price of raw opium, 1840–1915. 58
3.1 Moreau’s table charting the number of epileptic attacks that patients
experienced each month. Jacques-Joseph Moreau, “De l’action de la
vapeur d’éther dans l’épilepsie,” Annales medico-psychologiques, no.
12 (1848): 239. Courtesy of Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire de Santé
(Paris), https://www.biusante.parisdescartes.fr/histmed/medica/
page?90152x1848x12&p=243. 125
3.2 Lithographs of B… before and after treatment with morphine.
Lithographs based on photographs by Noël, in Auguste Voisin,
“Nouvelles observations sur le traitement curatif de la folie par
les injections sous-cutanées de chlorhydrate de morphine,”
Bulletin général de thérapeutique médicale et chirurgicale, no. 90
 . viii . figures

(1876): 62. Courtesy of Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire de Santé

(Paris), https://www.biusante.parisdescartes.fr/histmed/medica/
page?90014x1876x90&p=66. 136
3.3 Photographs of “hashish madness.” Photoglyptie Lemercier et Cie,
Paris, “Planche VII. Folie haschischique,” in Auguste Voisin, Leçons
cliniques sur les maladies mentales et sur les maladies nerveuses
(Paris: J.-B. Baillière, 1883), photographic plates follow p. 766.
Courtesy of Bibliothèque Nationale de France, https://gallica.bnf.fr/
ark:/12148/bpt6k54709942/f792.item. 138
3.4 Before and after photographs of patients cured with morphine.
Photoglyptie Lemercier et Cie, Paris, “Planche VIII. Aliénés traitées
et guéries par la morphine,” in Auguste Voisin, Leçons cliniques
sur les maladies mentales et sur les maladies nerveuses (Paris: J.-B.
Baillière, 1883): photographic plates follow page 766. Courtesy of
Bibliothèque Nationale de France, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/
bpt6k54709942/f794.item. 141
4.1 Henry Vollet, “Le Vice d’Asie: fumerie d’opium,” in Société des
artistes français, Catalogue illustré du Salon (Paris: Bibliothèque des
Annales, 1909), 160. Courtesy of Bibliothèque Nationale de France,
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k3045216s/f214.item. 193
4.2 Albert Matignon, La Morphine, 1905, oil on canvas, 105 x 145 cm.
Photograph by René-Gabriel Ojéda. © RMN-Grand Palais/Art
Resource, NY. 214
4.3 Georges Moreau de Tours, “Les Morphinées,” Le Petit Journal:
Supplement Illustré, 21 February 1891. Courtesy of Bibliothèque
Nationale de France, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k715900t/
f8.item. 216
5.1 Ether and chloroform consumed in Paris hospitals, 1855–85. 242
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book would not have been possible without the support of count-
less individuals over the years. At McGill-Queen’s University Press, I
would like to thank Kyla Madden for her steadfast support through the
publication process, Alison Jacques for her meticulous copyediting, and
Virginia Berridge and Erika Dyck for including this book as part of the
Intoxicating Histories series. I would also like to thank the anonymous
reviewers for their helpful feedback on the manuscript.
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Federation for the
Humanities and Social Sciences, Christopher Newport University, the
Rutgers Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the Rutgers Center for
Historical Analysis, and the Christopher Newport University History
Department provided generous financial support that made this project
possible. I would also like to thank the archivists and librarians at the
Archives Nationales; the Archives de la Ville de Paris; the Bibliothèque
Nationale de France; the Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire de Santé; the
Bibliothèque Charcot at Salpêtrière Hospital; the Bibliothèque Henri
Ey at Sainte-Anne Hospital; the Archives de la Préfecture de Police
de Paris; the Archives de l’Assistance Publique, Hôpitaux de Paris; the
Bibliothèque Centrale du Service de Santé at Val-de-Grâce; and the
Archives Nationales d’Outre Mer in Aix-en-Provence. I would particu-
larly like to thank Jérôme van Wijland at the Bibliothèque de l’Académie
Nationale de Médecine for going beyond the call of duty.
I am incredibly grateful for the numerous conversations with
colleagues that have influenced this project and shaped my own intel-
lectual growth as a historian. In particular, I would like to thank Kate
Imy, Allison Finkelstein, Danielle Bradley, Belinda Davis, Carla Yanni,
James Delbourgo, Toby Jones, Charlotte Cartwright, Laura Puaca, John
Hyland, David Stenner, Jaime Allison, Andrew Falk, Bill Connell, Brian
 .x. Acknowledgments

Puaca, Phil Hamilton, Deirdre Harshman, Matt Harshman, Sheri Shuck-

Hall, Xiaoqun Xu, Nigel Sellers, Kathryn Cole, Bill McNamara, Yücel
Yanikdağ, Margaret McColley, Gail Bossenga, Katherine Preston, Patrick
De Oliveira, and Elizabeth Della Zazzera. I am especially indebted to
Seth Koven, Judith Surkis, and Philip Nord for their intellectual rigour
and insightful feedback on the manuscript. Bonnie Smith realized this
project’s potential far before I did. I offer her my sincerest thanks for
her intellectual generosity and for many years of invaluable expertise,
support, and guidance.
While I conducted research in Paris, the Degons welcomed me
into their home and treated me as part of the family. We shared many
evenings of laughter and stimulating conversation that made my archival
experience enjoyable as well as productive. During the research and
writing process, my friends and family have been a source of constant
support and encouragement. Thank you to Lauren, Mary, Kate, Allison,
Diana, Bethany, Amaya, Julia, Cindy, Roland, Alex, Jared, Eléna, Molson,
and Oscar. My grandmother, Marilyn Black, has cheered me on from
afar every step of the way and I am so grateful for her encouragement
and enthusiasm. Finally, none of this would have been possible with-
out my mum and dad. I would like to thank them for their unshakable
confidence in me.
Last, but not least, I would like to thank my husband, Chris. Over
the years, he has endured, with patience and good humour, countless
conversational digressions as my mind wandered to the nineteenth cen-
tury. He has celebrated each milestone along the way, and I am deeply
grateful for his love and support.
 DRUGGING
FRANCE

To Carole Black, for 18 minutes,

and to Evan Black, for 110 percent.
 INTRODUCTION

In the nineteenth century, France was a nation on drugs. Opium pills

relieved insomnia. Morphine calmed agitated nerves. Chloroform ob-
literated the agony of amputation. Psychotropic drugs offered French
citizens a new way to transcend the day-to-day aches, pains, and miseries
of modern life. The isolation of new plant alkaloids, the discovery of
anesthetic gases, and the industrialization of pharmaceutical produc-
tion ushered in a dynamic new pharmaceutical economy that supplied
a wider variety of products than ever before.1 Within this emerging
psychotropic society, it was no longer necessary to suffer the caprices
of a body in pain.2
This world of drugs did not emerge out of thin air. Before these
substances could become integrated into the everyday lives of French
citizens, they had to be transformed into consumable pharmaceuticals.
The production of France’s psychotropic society depended upon a vast
community of knowledge producers – scientists, agriculturalists, entre-
preneurs, doctors, and pharmacists, among others – who transformed
exotic plant substances and mysterious laboratory gases into the familiar
consumer commodities that formed the basis of modern therapeutic
medicine. Extensive research created a medical marketplace in which
doctors prescribed and patients requested an ever-expanding array of
drugs. From the laboratory tests of solitary chemists to fiery debates in
the Academy of Sciences about the safety of anesthetic gases, the nor-
malization of psychotropic drugs within French society was contingent
upon an immense scientific apparatus.
The chemical enhancement of modern life became a new norm in
nineteenth-century France. Opium, morphine, ether, chloroform, cocaine,
and hashish all have the capacity to control pain, to produce pleasure,
and to modify consciousness.3 At various points, these multivalent sub-
stances served as key technologies of therapeutic innovation, as tools
 .4. Drugging France

for igniting sexual passion, and as conduits for self-exploration. They

enabled individuals to transcend physical pain. However, the enigmatic
nature of their psychotropic power made them remarkably versatile
commodities. From the pharmacy counter to the boudoir, from the
courtroom to the operating theatre, from the battlefield to the birthing
chamber, psychotropic drugs reconfigured how individuals perceived
and experienced their own minds and bodies.
Swallowing a pill to treat pain, anxiety, or depression has become a
normal part of everyday life in the twenty-first century. For most people,
it does not involve philosophical reflection. We have come to accept
pharmaceutical solutions to these problems. Historically, however, the
efficient management of pain was not something that French citizens
could take for granted. During the nineteenth century, new therapeutic
practices and rituals of consumption fundamentally transformed the
ways in which individuals experienced their own bodies. An aching
tooth could be soothed with opium extract or extracted painlessly with
a few inhalations of chloroform. Pain, rather than being an inevitable
burden, became an element over which one had a measure of control.
Psychotropic drugs served as tools of bodily regulation even as they
liberated people from pain. A diverse range of individuals, from doctors
to journalists to legislators, attempted to harness this regulatory power
and appropriate psychotropic drugs for their own ends. Enterprising
pharmacists distributed these effective and lucrative medicines to
improve profits and defend their legal monopoly over pharmaceutical
commerce. Through the practice of medical prescriptions, doctors
strove to position themselves as the logical gatekeepers of substances
that had such a powerful impact over the minds and bodies of pa-
tients. However, patients’ own knowledge of and experiences with this
psychotropic power also encouraged practices of self-medication and
self-experimentation that did not fit into doctors’ medicalized vision of
pain relief. Individuals sought out drugs on their own to treat ailments,
to experience pleasure, and to produce altered states of consciousness.
The individual consuming psychotropic substances engaged in an act of
bodily regulation by shaping his or her own sensations. At the same time,
doctors, pharmacists, and the state sought to mobilize these substances
to relieve pain in the hospital wards, restore sanity in the asylum, and
shore up their own authority over the bodies of citizens. Nevertheless,
 introduction .5.

psychotropic substances frequently eluded attempts to harness their

power toward a specific regulatory end.
The cultural baggage of the twentieth-century “War on Drugs” has
shaped how historians have approached the history of drugs. Most drug
histories are written through the lenses of regulation and criminalization,
focusing on the processes by which certain drugs came to be demonized
as dangerous and illicit commodities.4 Such accounts treat the history
of drugs in the nineteenth century as a precursor to the history of drug
regulation in the twentieth.5 Rather than asking why certain drugs and
certain kinds of recreational drug use became stigmatized at a particular
moment in time, I find the more compelling question to be this: How
did drugs become so pervasive in the first place? Drugging France is first
and foremost a story of normalization. It traces the processes by which
psychotropic drugs became commonplace consumer commodities. To
be sure, doctors, patients, courts, and society at large still had to confront
the problems that drugs generated. However, issues like addiction can
only be fully understood within their larger historical context – in this
case, a context in which the psychotropic management of pain, sensation,
and consciousness had become an accepted social norm. Therefore,
Drugging France treats the history of drugs in the nineteenth century
not as an initial chapter in the history of drug regulation but rather as
the foundational period in the history of our current psychotropic so-
ciety, where pharmaceutical consumption is woven seamlessly into the
fabric of everyday life. The story of the normalization of drugs is bound
up with the emergence of modern ideas about scientific protocols and
ways of knowing, conceptions of the self, and international networks
of medical production, trade, and consumption.

Paris was the capital of scientific medicine in the first half of the nine-
teenth century.6 During the Enlightenment, Paris’s scientific culture
and institutions of medical research, which enjoyed royal and church
patronage, laid the foundations for this later dominance. However, the
early nineteenth century witnessed the dramatic reformation of this
Enlightenment inheritance.7 During the French Revolution, the govern-
ment confiscated church property and expelled the religious orders from
the hospitals. In the name of freedom and individual rights, it opposed
professional elitism by eliminating corporations and thereby abolishing
 .6. Drugging France

institutions like the Faculty of Medicine and the Academy of Sciences.8

Although France later reorganized these institutions and allowed the
nuns to return to the hospitals, the Revolution’s radical transformations
unfettered the French medical community from traditional authorities.9
Paris rapidly became the centre of a new form of clinical medicine.
Foreign medical students flocked to Paris to profit from the anatomy
lessons, modern diagnostic techniques, and bedside clinical observations
in the capital’s numerous modernized hospitals.10 This dynamic clinical
environment was an ideal location for research on psychotropic drugs.
The medical community had limited knowledge of the effects
of psychotropic drugs at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
Nevertheless, they recognized their enormous therapeutic potential.
For centuries, opium had been one of the only reliable remedies for
pain. With the isolation of its alkaloids, particularly morphine, and
the introduction of new production techniques in the pharmaceutical
industry, opium could be transformed and moulded into a plethora of
new remedies for combatting the aches and pains of everyday life. Ether
and chloroform had the potential to revolutionize surgical practice by
ushering the patient into a state of painless unconsciousness. Hashish
produced bizarre hallucinations and sensory distortions that gave asy-
lum doctors reason to hope it might be useful as a treatment for mental
illness. Paradoxically, the incredible psychotropic power that made
these substances so appealing for medical therapeutics was the very
quality that made them dangerous. The ancient Greeks used the term
pharmakon to describe a substance that was both remedy and poison.
The psychotropic pharmacopoeia depended upon a delicate balance of
dosage. Too low a dose and the drug would be ineffective. Too high a dose
risked acute crisis and even death. Doctors counteracted this intrinsic
danger through extensive research. In the process, they constructed a
massive body of knowledge about psychotropic drugs.
The enigmatic power of psychotropic drugs over the human body
and mind incited a wide range of experiments. While scientists could
isolate plant alkaloids and purify anesthetic gases with calculated precision
in a laboratory, investigations into the psychosomatic effects of these
substances required a far more intimate encounter with psychotropic
power. When news of ether’s anesthetic potential crossed the Atlantic
in 1847, members of the French Academy of Sciences launched into an