Dark paradise : opiate addiction in America before 1940
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Dark paradise : opiate addiction in America before 1940
Harvard University Press, 1982
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 225-263) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
In this eye-opening book, David Courtwright offers an original interpretation of a puzzling chapter in American social and medical history: the dramatic change in the pattern of opiate addiction. Once observed primarily among upper- and middle-class matrons, addiction came to be concentrated among young, lower-class urban males, often with a delinquent or criminal record. He challenges the view that the shift resulted simply from new laws such as the Harrison Narcotic Act of 1914, and shows that a crucial role was played by the medical rather than the legal profession. Courtwright's blending of medical and scientific literature with newspaper accounts, oral histories, and personal documents results in a striking exegesis of attitudes and practices still very much with us.
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