mddm 27: coffee,tea...Ooaphium?

[jbor]

on 11/1/02 1:08 AM, Bandwraith at aol.com at Bandwraith at aol.com wrote:

> Is it opium that the narrator (Rev'd?) is referring to in the
> last line of p.266: "Chinamen's Drugs"?
> 
> Not really a major problem of the Central Kingdom, no? At
> least not until its introduction by others- or am I confusing
> it with tea. Anyone more familiar with The Company's connection
> with the introduction of opium into China, at about this time?
snip

Pynchon does, though it was about half a century or so later than this I
think:

    ... Chu Piang ... is a living monument to the success of British trade
    policy back during the last century. The classic hustle is still famous,
    even today, for the cold purity of its execution: bring opium from
    India, introduce it into China--howdy Fong, this here's opium, opium,
    this is Fong--ah, so, me eatee! no-ho-ho. Fong, you smokee, *smokee*,
    see? pretty soon Fong's coming back for more and more and so you create
    an inelastic trade for the shit, get China to make it illegal, then
    sucker China into a couple-three disastrous wars over the right of your
    merchants to sell opium, which by now you are describing as sacred. You
    win, China loses. (_GR_ 346)

The Opium Wars were 1839-42 and 1856-60. Opium was introduced to China from
India "early in the 19th C."

Anyway, I'd say there were a whole lot of other herbs and potions and animal
parts which would have fallen under the category of "Chinamen's Drugs" at
that time. Dioxn, of course, is the one asking for something containing
opium, and Ben Franklin, obviously something of an expert on the topic,
supplies him with the name of the era's most popular tincture of the drug:
laudanum. (266-67)

best