a glass of laudanum negus, warm, and without sugar — Negus is another name for mulled wine, which traditionally was prepared by adding some cinnamon/cloves/nutmeg/fruit peel/ to a mug of wine, and then heating it by stirring with a hot poker from the fire. Laudanum negus was exactly the same but had a number of drops of laudanum (opium in water) added.
In Victorian times, laudanum was an extremely popular opium — based painkiller prescribed for everything from headaches to tuberculosis. Victorian nursemaids even spoon fed the drug to infants, often leading to the untimely deaths of their charges. Originally, laudanum was thought of as a drug of the working class: it was cheaper than gin and therefore it was not uncommon for factory workers to take huge quantities of laudanum after a hard week's work. Use of the drug spread rapidly and doctors of the time prescribed it for almost every aliment. Many famous people took laudanum including Queen Victoria, Florence Nightingale and the Pre-Raphaelite poets.
Last modified 17 March 2002