Have you heard of chlorodyne?

Tweet

The photo has nothing to do with the discussion. The six goats - twins and quadruplets - were born two days ago. All doing well. Back in the 1970s, my husband, Vince, played drums in a dance band. There were four in the group – two brothers, the wife of one and Vince. They would receive a fee for playing and were usually given free alcohol. The three men would imbibe freely and Vince often had a hangover next morning. One morning, when he was suffering badly, the friend we were staying with offered him some chlorodyne. It did seem to help. We were reminiscing about this recently with this same friend and she told us it was a mixture of laudanum, tincture of cannabis and chloroform. Laudanum is an alcoholic solution of opium. No wonder it helped with his hangovers! The bottle now resides in a locked display case in the little museum in that town. Wikipedia says that chlorodyne was one of the best known patent medicines sold in the UK. A Dr John Collis Browne was a doctor in the British Indian Army and invented the concoction in the 19th century, originally for the treatment of cholera. It seems its high opiate content made it highly addictive. So have any of our UK readers heard of chlorodyne?