Opium slavery : Civil War veterans and America's first opioid crisis / Jonathan S. Jones.
| Author/creator | Jones, Jonathan S. author. |
| Other author | University of North Carolina Press, publisher. |
| Format | Book |
| Publication | Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, [2025] |
| Copyright Date | ©2025 |
| Description | xiv, 393 pages : illustrations, photographs ; 24 cm. |
| Subjects |
| Series | Civil War America Civil War America (Series) http://id.loc.gov/resources/hubs/83d166b4-c637-47ab-4d1c-4fd7b4e9f991 ^A325557 |
| Contents | Contents -- List of figures -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- The magnum Dei donum of the Materia Medica : the rise of opiates in antebellum American medicine -- So dreadful an evil : the cultural construction of opiate addiction in antebellum America -- The Drs. put me on morphine : Civil War medicine and opiate addiction -- Opium slavery : veterans and the experience of addiction -- Opium mania : addiction as mental illness -- Vicious habits : opiate-addiction and military entitlements -- Buying and selling the cure : veterans and patent medicine remedies for opiate addiction -- The revolt against opium : physicians react to mass addiction -- The Army disease : remembering addicted veterans in the twentieth and twenty-first century United States -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index. |
| Abstract | "During the Civil War, the utility and widespread availability of opium and morphine made opiates essential to wartime medicine. After the war ended, thousands of ailing soldiers became addicted, or 'enslaved,' as nineteenth-century Americans phrased it. Veterans, their families, and communities struggled to cope with addiction's health and social consequences. Medical and government authorities compounded veterans' suffering and imbued the epidemic with cultural meaning by branding addiction as a matter of moral weakness, unmanliness, or mental infirmity. Framing addiction as 'opium slavery' limited the efficacy of care and left many veterans to suffer needlessly for decades after the war ended. Drawing from veterans' firsthand accounts as well as mental asylum and hospital records, government and medical reports, newspaper coverage of addiction, and advertisements, Jonathan S. Jones unearths the poorly understood stories of opiate-addicted Civil War veterans in unflinching detail, illuminating the war's traumatic legacies. In doing so, Jones provides critical historical context for the modern opioid crisis, which bears tragic resemblance to that of the post-Civil War era."-- Back cover |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (on pages [285]-379) and an index (on pages [381]-393). |
| LCCN | 2025015422 |
| ISBN | 9781469689524 hardcover |
| ISBN | 1469689529 hardcover |
| ISBN | 9781469689531 paperback |
| ISBN | 1469689537 paperback |
| ISBN | electronic book |
| ISBN | electronic book |
Availability
| Library | Location | Call Number | Status | Item Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Joyner | Item has been checked out | HV5825 .J645 2025 | Due 05/20/2026 | Want This? |