7 August 1996
 
Dear Listmembers:
 
        I forward the following message from IEAHC-net (Early
Americanists) to the list in the hopes that someone may be
able to help Professor Butler.
 
Sincerely,
 
Mark A. Mastromarino
Papers of George Washington
University of Virginia
 
According to Jon Butler:
> From root Wed Aug  7 08:33:59 1996
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> Date:         Wed, 7 Aug 1996 08:21:11 EDT
> Reply-To: H-NET/IEAHC ASSOCIATION IN EARLY AMERICAN STUDIES <[log in to unmask]
.uic.edu>
> Sender: H-NET/IEAHC ASSOCIATION IN EARLY AMERICAN STUDIES <[log in to unmask]
ic.edu>
> From: Jon Butler <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject:      Crevecoeur on women and opium
> To: Multiple recipients of list IEAHCNET <[log in to unmask]>
>
> Do anyone know of any scholarly discussion of the following statement by
> Crevecoeur on women's use of opium in Nantucket (from Letters from an
> American Farmer of 1782)or, for that matter, on drugs generally in early
> America?
>
> Jon Butler
> [log in to unmask]
> ---------------------------------------
>
>
> Stone, ed., Letters, p. 160:  "A singular custom prevails here among the
> women, at which I was greatly surprised and am really at a loss how to
> account for the original cause that has introduced in this primitive
> society so remarkable a fashion, or rather so extraordinary a want.  They
> have adopted these many years the Asiatic custom of taking a dose of opium
> every morning, and so deeply rooted is it that they would be at a loss how
> to live without this indulgence;  they would rather be deprived of any
> necessary than forego their favorite luxury.  This is much more prevailing
> among the women than the men, few of the latter having caught the
> contagion, though the sheriff, whom I may call the first person in the
> island, who is an eminent physician beside and whom I had the pleasure of
> being well acquainted with, has for many years submitted to this custom.
> He takes three grains of it every day after breakfast, with the effects of
> which, he often told me, he was not able to transact any business.
>   It is hard to conceive how a people always happy and healthy, in
> consequence of the exercise and labour they undergo, never oppressed with
> the vapours of idleness, yet should want the fictitious effects of opium to
> preserve that cheerfulness to which their temperance, their climate, their
> happy situation, so justly entitle them.  But where is the society
> perfectly free from error or folly;  the least imperfect is undoubtedly
> that where the greatest good preponderates;  and agreeable to this rule, I
> can truly say, that I never was acquainted with a less vicious or more
> harmless one."