Earlier in the novel, in Chapter 3, it is specified that she uses laudanum.... if Molly should take a drop too much laudanum some day, and make a widower of you. Wilkie Collins novel The Moonstone (1868) features laudanum "as an essential ingredient of the plot." Collins based his description of the drugs effects on his own experiences with it. A laudanum-addicted character also appeared in Wilkie Collins novel Armadale (1864–66). Laudanum appears in Charles Baudelaires prose poem The Double Room, published in his collection Le Spleen de Paris in 1869. Laudanum is portrayed as the surgical drug of choice for fifteenth-century physicians in Lawrence Schoonovers novel The Burnished Blade (1948), the plot of which deals in part with the smuggling of expensive raw opium into France from the Empire of Trebizond. In William Faulkners novel Requiem for a Nun (1951), Compson, Doctor Peabody, and Ratcliffe give whiskey tainted with laudanum to a group of rowdy lynchers and a militia band that had joined together. Upon their falling asleep, they were gathered up and locked in jail while still unconscious. Stephen Maturin, one of the main characters in Patrick OBrians Aubrey–Maturin series of novels (1969–2004) about the Napoleonic wars, is a sometime laudanum addict. Laudanum is prescribed in Glendon Swarthouts novel The Shootist (1975) to the character J.B. Books, played by John Wayne in Don Siegels movie adaptation (1976).
Misinterpretation of "DTO"
The abbreviation "DTO," traditionally used to refer to Deodorized Tincture of Opium, is sometimes also erroneously employed to abbreviate "diluted tincture of opium." Diluted tincture of opium, also known as Camphorated Tincture of Opium (Paregoric) is a 1:25 mixture of opium tincture to water prescribed to treat withdrawal symptoms in newborns whose mothers were using opioids while pregnant. The United States Pharmacopeia and FDA recommend that practitioners refrain from using DTO in prescriptions, given this potential for confusion. In cases where pharmacists have misinterpreted DTO, and given "deodorized tincture of opium" when "diluted tincture of opium" was meant, infants have received a massive 25-fold overdose of morphine, sometimes resulting in fatalities. Side effects
Side effects of laudanum are generally the same as with morphine, and include euphoria, dysphoria, pruritus, sedation, constipation, reduced tidal volume, respiratory depression, as well as psychological dependence, physical dependence, miosis, and xerostomia. Overdose can result in severe respiratory depression or collapse and death. The ethanol component can also induce adverse effects at higher doses; the side effects are the same as with alcohol. Long-term use of laudanum in nonterminal diseases is discouraged due to the possibility of drug tolerance and addiction. Long-term use can also lead to abnormal liver function tests; specifically, prolonged morphine use can increase ALT and AST blood serum levels. Treatment for overdose
Life-threatening overdose of opium tincture owes to the preparations morphine content. Morphine produces a dose-dependent depressive effect on the respiratory system, which can lead to profound respiratory depression, hypoxia, coma and finally respiratory arrest and death.