what exactly is lady bertram drinking throughout the movie?
i know fanny mentions lady bertram taking opium, but i thought that was smoked?
sharethere's multiple ways to injest it.
MovieChat Forums > Mansfield Park (1999) Discussion > what exactly is lady bertram drinking th...
she's probably taking laudanum, opium dissolved in alcohol. its usually taken in drops, i believe, except by those, Coleridge & Lady Bertram being two, who have either an increased need or developed a habit, or 'taste'. i wonder if Puggsie ever got any?
shareYes Laudnum was what she was drinking-too much of it can kill you-I cant believe she was drinking so much!
shareI saw this movie recently, and there's one point where they mention laudanum by name. Many women during this time who were diagnosed with "vapors" or "humors" were given huge doses of laudanum because of it's calming effects, and died from overdose.
shareYeah, laudanum was prescribed for almost everything, from headaches over cramps to Tuberculosis. It was even fed to infants as a cure for coughs, colds, spasms, stomach ache, diarrhea or sleeplessness -in short, anything that occurs in a normal, healthy child- and contributed to the high death rates in infants.
Ironically, laudanum originally was the called "the drug of working class people", because it was cheaper than gin or wine...
Actually, they were STILL giving laudanum to kids, under a different name, up through the 1950's and even 60's. Ah, the good old days . . .
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