ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the morphine ‘epidemic’ in late nineteenth-century France, through consideration of the concepts of ‘morphinisme’ and ‘morphinomanie’ in the Parisian medical world, and the various ways in which the transfer of knowledge from medical to popular domains generated prohibitive discourses surrounding this substance. The invention of the hypodermic needle, the ‘Pravaz’ syringe, in 1852, brought injectable morphine into wide medical use by the time of the Franco-Prussian War. As Edwards (2004) asserts, the syringe is commonly perceived as ‘a devastatingly malign change agent,’ and it is the locus of heavy stigmatization even within the drug-using and recovery communities today. Considering evidence from a range of sources-medical treatises, visual culture, literature, and the press-this paper will consider the discursive framing of intravenous morphine use in fin-de-siècle French culture. It will argue that the theoretical distinction between ‘innocent’ and ‘guilty’ types of morphine user, termed ‘morphinistes’ (medical or accidental addicts) and ‘morphinomanes’ (‘decadent’ or recreational addicts), collapses upon closer scrutiny.
