Opium. The Flowers of Evil
Opium, once used for ritual purposes, is a substance which dulls pain and offers access to an artificial world, and has long been idealized by artists and markets. Baudelaire, Picasso, and Dickens were all inspired to create by the blue clouds of smoke. Known as either a sacred drug or the worst of poisons, opium rapidly became popular in Great Britain and a source of commerce with Imperial China. This illustrated work presents the history and quasi-religious rites of opium’s use.
Читать Opium. The Flowers of Evil онлайн беплатно
© Confidential Concepts, worldwide, USA
© Parkstone Press International, New York, USA
Chronology
00 – Opium may have been introduced into China by Arab importers around this time.
1500 – The practice of ‘smoking’ opium begins.
late 1600s – The custom of smoking opium in tobacco pipes is brought to China by the Dutch.
1800s – This practice spreads to Europe and America.
1821 – Thomas de Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater is published, and for first time, opium, rather than addicts, is portrayed as the hero.
1839–1842 – The First Opium War. To boost exports, the British force the importation of opium from India into China, where it is illegal. Demand for the addictive product intensifies and China orders all British opium destroyed. The British declare war. A year later, China surrenders and is forced to give the important port of Hong Kong to the British. Under British rule, opium becomes the main product of Hong Kong.
1856–1860 – Second Opium War.
1860s – The hypodermic syringe is perfected. Patients with chronic pain are given morphine and a syringe, while physicians mistakenly believe that injecting morphine by syringe could cure opium-eating addiction.
1898 – Heroin, diacetylmorphine, is discovered.
1945 – American General Douglas McArthur, in charge of occupied Japan, forbids Japanese farmers to cultivate opium and halts all narcotic production.
1949 – The UN Narcotics Commission establishes a committee in Ankara, Turkey, to control and supervise the trading of opium throughout the world.
1960 – Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, portrays a Caucasian, middle-class heroine who becomes addicted to opium after it is prescribed for medicinal use.
1965 – Chinese Premier Chou En-lai declares that the Chinese are encouraging opium consumption amongst American troops in Vietnam, in revenge for British strategies in China in the 19th century.
1984 – Intense interest in the opium clipper, The Frolic, starts with the discovery in the Redwood Forest of California of many boxes of Chinese products from the ship which were intended to be sold to ‘the ‘49ers’. Pieces of Chinese ceramics had been shaped into arrowheads by Native Americans.
2000s – Opium production in Afghanistan, the world’s largest producer of the drug, reaches record high levels. Cultivation peaks in 2007.
I. Turning On: Introduction
The Beautiful – and Dangerous
Intense interest in the opium clipper, The Frolic, started in 1984, with a surprising discovery in the Redwood Forest of California, off the coast of northern California at Mendocina. Pieces of Chinese ceramics which had been shaped into arrowheads by Native Americans were found. The sharpened pieces were discovered among the many boxes of Chinese products from The Frolic that were intended to be sold to ‘the ‘49ers’, those optimistic miners who rushed to California seeking gold in the mid-19th century.
Male Figure Holding a Poppy Plant
Neo-Assyrian period
Alabaster panel with relief, 110 × 52 × 28 cm
Musée du Louvre, Paris
The clipper had spent its previous six years smuggling North Indian opium from Bombay into China. The Baltimore-built ship was designed to be exceptionally fast. It could do an amazing fourteen to fifteen knots, making it capable of escaping the best of Chinese vessels. The Frolic was the last of the ships out of Baltimore that embarrassed the slower British ships during the War of 1812.
The ‘Glorification’ of an Opium Flower
Fragment of a Greek funeral pillar
c. 470–460 BCE
Marble, 56.5 × 67 × 14 cm
Musée du Louvre, Paris
Driving along the California coast today, thrill seekers might enjoy finding poppies growing wild. What could be more exciting than to find something that could produce the miraculous drug that is praised by scholars and poets, physicians and hedonists throughout history? It could be like the excitement Native Americans probably experienced 150 years ago when they found the treasure from The Frolic.
Opium Poppy
Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, c. 1575
Watercolour and bodycolour, 27.4 × 19.3 cm
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Opium has definitely been shown to relieve pain, reduce hunger and thirst, induce restful sleep, and reduce anxiety. However, like other great gifts to mankind, opium can either be of great benefit or be fatal, depending on how, when, and why people use it.
Opium Poppy (Papaver somniferum, three varieties) and Field Poppy (Papaver rhoeas)
16th century
Watercolour
Theodorus Clutius Collection
The California dreamers who pick up wild poppies from the side of the road will be brought back to reality after a little research. They will discover that the so-called California poppy (Eschscholtzia californica) is in fact a wildflower in the buttercup family. It produces no capsule and therefore is not actually a member of the poppy family, albeit at first glance it certainly looks like its capsule-bearing cousin.
Red Horned Poppy (Glaucium corniculatum)
16th century
Watercolour
Theodorus Clutius Collection
Obviously some basic facts and an appreciation about the poppy and opium are needed, even though surely most people have learned some basics already from everyday pop culture. It is almost impossible to watch recent mainstream movies or read pulp fiction without learning that opium is a narcotic drug. When it was studied more closely, researchers learned that opium is obtained from the juice of the immature fruits of the Oriental poppy. Careful observers will notice that typical opium poppies have four petals in white, violet, pink, or red. They surround a star-shaped stigma from which at least five and up to sixteen ‘rays’ fan out. A single pistil (containing from 150 to 200 stamens) is surrounded by five concentric circles. Fertilisation produces from 800 to 2,000 seeds.
