In the public mind, opioids such as morphine and laudanum, although they remained the most effective pain relievers, became associated with their illegal cousins--heroin and opium .
For most of the 19th century's mind blowers, opium meant laudanum, an alcoholic solution of the drug used as a common painkiller.
He put his wife to sleep with a whopping dose of laudanum.
Ioan Gruffudd in Times Online Yes, he was addicted to laudanum,Gruffudd says. "But he was such a disciplinarian that he was able to take just the right amount of dosage to suppress the pain of colitis and to function at the same time."