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SPECULATIONS CONCERNING OPIUM ABUSE AND WORLD HISTORY JOSEPH D. SAPIRA, M.D.* Introduction Historians have long enjoyed speculating about factors associated with the fall of major civilizations. To the best of our knowledge, a systematic survey of the temporal relationship of opium abuse to the life span of major civilizations has not been attempted. The present essay attempts to test the working hypothesis that abuse of opium is a feature of the terminal fifth of major civilizations. Civilization is defined as the major culture of a particular time and place which is distinguished by its language, mass religion, military system, and group identity. To test the hypothesis, three dates are needed: the beginning of the civilization, the end of the civilization, and an index year for opium abuse. The index year for opium abuse will be defined as the year in which there was (maximal) vulgar nonmedicinal use of opiates. In practice, these dates are extremely difficult to determine. Therefore, for most of the civilizations to be discussed it will be necessary to calculate from several possible alternative dates, and for the earlier civilizations without written records of opium abuse it will be necessary to infer an earliest possible index year for opium abuse from indirect evidence. To simplify the comparison between civilizations of unequal length, we will express our data as the ratio (R) of the index year for opium abuse (expressed as the ordinal year of that civilization) to the civilization's total span. For example, a hypothetical civilization began in year 2001 and ended in 3001. The index year for opium abuse is considered to have occurred before 2091. Therefore: 2091 - 2001 _90_ 3001 - 2001 1000 "»Department of Medicine, University of South Alabama, Mobile. I thank Dr. Chuang of the Department of History, University of South Alabama, for his help with the Chinese etymology; and Dr. Abraham Danon of Beer-Sheva for his assistance in the Hebrew translations . The manuscript was typed by Ms. Sandy McQueen. I acknowledge the unfailing support of Dr. Robert A. Kreisberg, chairman of the Department of Medicine, without whom this paper would not have been published, and to whom it is dedicated. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine · Spring 1975 | 379 In practice, the hypothesis will be considered disproved whenever it can be shown that R ' _ 5000- 4475 " >m ' 5000 - 4329=>·94· Therefore the data do not refute the hypothesis. Assyria The Assyrians possibly had two words for it—hul-gil and arat-Pa-Pa. The latter word is thought to be the etymological root of the Latin papaver [7]. Assyria as a civilization can be dated from about 2000 b.c.e. to 606 b.c.e. when Nineveh fell for the last time. Opium abuse, as defined for the purposes of this essay, is not recorded, but opium itself was known to the Assyrians in the seventh century b.c.e. Their king Asurbanipal, also known as Sardanapulus, collected pharmacology manuscripts or, more correctly, tablets which mention opium [7, 9]. Since he ruled from 668 to 626 b.c.e. [8] or from 668 to 627 b.c.e. [10], opium must have been 382 J Joseph D. Sapira · Opium Abuse available "only on prescription" until 667 at the earliest. Therefore 2000- 11671167. 2 1500 - 3051195 ^ ' 384 J Joseph D. Sapira · Opium Abuse _ 776 - 453 - >'98 ' „ >443 ^ 443 ^ .. ^=776-305=>47Î=>·94· Accordingly, the hypothesis is not refuted by the available data from ancient Greece. Ancient Persia Unlike their Greek contemporaries, the Persians left few writings. There is no evidence that they ever had opium abuse, although they must be mentioned since they knew of opium. As a people, they had already driven the Elamites out of the ancient capital of Susa by the ninth century b.c.e. Opium is not mentioned in their texts until the sixth century, and by the early part of the fifth century the Persian civilization began its decline (Marathon, 490 b.c.e.; Thermopylae, 480 b.c.e.; Plataea, 479 b.c.e.). It terminated in 330 b.c.e. with the death of Darius III, the last of the Achaemenid emperors [8]. Of the above dates, the only specific one may...

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