Painkillers: A Short History
Painkillers, originally derived from the opium poppy, have been used for thousands of years for both recreational and medicinal purposes. The most active substance in opium is morphine—named after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams. Morphine is a very powerful painkiller, but it is also very addictive.
In the 16th century, laudanum, opium prepared in an alcoholic solution, was used as a painkiller.
Morphine was first extracted from opium in a pure form in the early 19th century. It was used widely as a painkiller during the American Civil War, and many soldiers became addicted.
Morphine, the most active substance in opium, is a very powerful painkiller that hooked many US Civil War soldiers.
Codeine is a less powerful drug than morphine that can be extracted from opium or synthesized. It was first isolated in 1832 in France by Pierre-Jean Robiquet as an alternative to raw opium for medical purposes, with fewer side effects. It is used mainly as a cough remedy.
Throughout the early 19th century, the recreational use of opium grew and, in the 1830s, the British dependence on the drug reached an all-time high. The British sent warships to the coast of China in 1839 in response to China’s attempt to suppress the opium traffic, beginning the First Opium War.
In 1874, chemists trying to find a less addictive form of morphine made heroin, which was first promoted as a cure for morphine addiction. But heroin was found to have twice the potency of morphine, and heroin addiction soon became a serious problem.
In 1909, the US Congress banned the importation and use of opium for any purpose other than medicinal.
Methadone was first synthesized in 1937 by German scientists Max Bockmühl and Gustav Ehrhart at the IG Farben company. They were searching for a painkiller that would be easier to use during surgery with less addiction potential than morphine or heroin, yet methadone is believed by many to be even more addictive than heroin.
New painkillers came on the market with approval from the Food and Drug Administration: Percocet in 1976, Vicodin in 1978 and OxyContin in 1995.
Fentanyl was first introduced in the 1960s as an intravenous anesthetic to treat severe pain. Starting in around 2013, dealers began adding fentanyl to other illicit drugs, resulting in epidemic overdoses and deaths.
The stamp of IG Farben, the German company whose chemists Bockmühl and Ehrhart developed the formula for methadone (right)—a synthetic form of heroin.
How much do you really know about painkillers?
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