Historical Aspects

Abstract

Opiates are drugs derived from extracts of the juice of the opium poppy and have been used medically for thousands of years. References to the use of poppy extracts with opiate-like actions have been found in the Bible.¹ One of the first references to the medical use of opium was by the Greek Theophrastus who, at the beginning of the third century B.C., spoke of mekoneion.¹ Parcelus (1490–1540), a famous physician of the middle ages, used opium boldly, and his followers were equally enthusiastic.¹ Thomas Sydenham, one of the great physicians of the 17th century, wrote in describing a series of dysentery epidemics in 1669–1672: “And here I cannot but break out in praise of the great God, the giver of all good things, who hath granted to the human race, as a comfort in their affliction, no medicine of the value of opium, either in regard to the number of diseases it can control, or its efficiency in extirpating them.”²