What does laudanum do

Opium, an exudate of Papaver somniferum , a poppy cultivated historically in Asia, was already well known to Galen.

No doubt the opium made many forget their troubles thanks to its main active ingredient: morphine. And when it came to pain and coughs, opium definitely worked. Little wonder that morphine has remained a mainstay of medicine. This was very effective against pain but many looked to it for its euphoria effect. De Quincey had been introduced to laudanum in as a treatment for trigeminal neuralgia, a disease of the trigeminal nerve that runs down the face.

Even mild stimulation such as brushing the teeth or exposure to the wind can trigger a jolt of excruciating pain. And morphine, of course, first isolated from opium in by the German pharmacist Friedrich Serturner, is a mainstay of pain therapy. Morphine was the first alkaloid ever isolated from a plant, making Serturner the first person to isolate an active ingredient from a medicinal plant.

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