193: The Habit: Opioid Addiction in America

BackStory

History, Education

4.7 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 6 April 2018

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As the opioid epidemic continues, Surgeon General Dr. Jerome M. Adams said this week that Americans should carry and learn to use naloxone, an overdose antidote. In this episode, Nathan, Ed and Brian look at America's long history with opioids - like opium, morphine and heroin. They’ll discuss how late 19th century doctors spurred the nation’s first addiction crisis and how race and class have shaped our perception of addicts and addiction.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Major funding for backstory is provided by an anonymous donor, the National
0:04.2	Dowment for the Humanities, the University of Virginia, the Joseph and Robert
0:08.3	Cornell Memorial Foundation, and the Arthur Vining Davis foundations.
0:12.5	From Virginia Humanities, this is backstory.
0:19.6	Welcome to backstory, the show that explains the history behind today's headlines.
0:27.6	I'm Nathan Connelly.
0:28.9	I'm Brian Ballot.
0:29.9	And I'm Ed Ayers.
0:31.3	If you're new to the podcast, Nathan, Brian, our colleague Joanne Freeman and I are all
0:35.6	historians.
0:36.6	And each week we explore the history of a topic that's in the news.
0:40.8	Brian and Ed, I'm going to start off today with some old time recipes.
0:44.1	I talked to a historian named David Courtwright recently.
0:47.4	He was doing some archival research a while back and happened to thumb through some 19th
0:51.6	century cookbooks.
0:53.0	He noticed something a little odd.
0:55.6	What you discover right away is that they're not just about how you bake the beans or how
1:00.8	you make the pork chops.
1:02.5	There's always a section of medical recipes in the back.
1:06.5	Now, some of these 19th century home curers might sound pretty familiar.
1:10.2	Think about your grandmother's chicken soup for a cold, for instance, or herbal tea to
1:13.9	settle an upset stomach.
	...

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