Tea at Trianon: The Rise of an Epidemic

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, September 28, 2018

The Rise of an Epidemic

From American Consequences:

The accident inflicted permanent back injuries that left Gallego struggling with chronic pain. As a Los Angeles police officer, Gallego was credited with saving lives. He had once even rescued two motorists in a severe flood. But during the two decades that followed his accident, Gallego underwent multiple back surgeries. And he was treated with various pain medications. Eventually, he was prescribed the painkiller OxyContin, a slow-release pill containing oxycodone. Oxycodone is also the active ingredient in medications like Percocet. More important, oxycodone is an opioid, a highly addictive narcotic drug one-and-a-half times more powerful than morphine. Drugs like this have properties similar to opium and heroin. Oxycodone and hydrocodone (the active ingredient in Vicodin) are semi-synthetic opioids that bind to receptors in the brain and spinal cord – lessening the perception of pain. (Read more.)