Around 620,000 soldiers died in the US Civil War, but that toll would have been higher if surgeons hadn’t become schooled in the art of the quick amputation, along with other battlefield medical innovations. Another half-million men were injured in battle, many of them left with life-long disabilities. Even those that recovered often faced a long and painful rehabilitation. But overworked battlefield doctors had something to help them through it- opium, morphine, and laudanum, which were prescribed for everything from wounds to malaria to stomach aches.
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After the war, many of these men went home addicted to painkillers. There were no drug rehab programs in place. In fact, these veterans were shunned for being weak and unmanly. Reliance on opioids could get a veteran excluded from housing benefits or pensions, even widow’s benefits if he was discovered to have been taking opioids. Read about opiate use in the Civil war and the stigma it left behind at Jstor Daily.
Source: neatorama