De Quincey and attitudes to opium

Next Tuesday, 8 December, marks the 150th anniversary of the death of Thomas De Quincey, author of ‘Confessions of an English opium eater’. Various events, including a one-day conference at the University of Salford, are being held to mark the occasion.

De Quincey was born on 15 August 1785 near Manchester, the second son of a linen merchant. His father died when he was eight, leaving a modest fortune to his widow. This enabled Thomas to be educated privately, before attending Manchester Grammar School, from where he went on to study at Oxford University.

It was during a trip to London from Oxford, during one of his regular bouts of facial neuralgia, that he first tried opium, on the recommendation of a college friend. He wrote that the druggist “looked dull and stupid, just as any mortal druggist might be expected to look on a Sunday”, and his purchase of opium tincture was to start him on the road to a lifetime of addiction.

Published in 1821, ‘Confessions’ both fascinated and outraged its 19th century readers. It has often been studied for its importance in the genre of autobiography, or as prefiguring the work of Freud on dreams. Other contemporary authors had become addicted to opium, but De Quincey was the only one who wrote openly about his addiction, studying it with an almost clinical detachment.

His verdict on opium as a drug, and himself as an addict, was that his personality had not been changed, that his faculties and mental health had been impaired temporarily and that the inevitable final pains of opium were much greater than its early pleasures.

Another important discovery was that the drug greatly intensified the workings of some faculties, especially those of memory and of dreaming. He distilled his findings into three basic facts about opium — it is brown in colour, it is expensive and, if a man eats enough of it, he will die.

Heated debate followed on such topics as the causality of opiate use, the impact of availability and environment, therapeutic addiction, controlled use, tolerance, withdrawal techniques and the impact of advertising.

Many of these topics — much dismissed 150 years ago — remain subjects of debate and causes for concern today.