An opiate of the ninteenth century. Good times.

From the book The House of The Scorpion. A drug containing alcohol and opium. The opium being dissolved in the alcohol. Three drops of the laudanum can knock a human out for eight hours.

A drug that started out as a "Cure-all", drug for the poor, who in the pre-20th century era were too uneducated and ignorant to understand that there was no such thing as a cure-all. Many died from overdosing because warning labels and instructions often didn't come with a bottle, it was made illegal in the US by about 1900. It had no real healing power, although it was one of the first widely accepted placeabos used.