The Green Fairy in the Maghreb: Absinthe, Guilt and Cultural Assimilation in French Colonial Medicine

This article provides an overview of the medical and psychiatric discourse on the introduction and spread of the absinthe consumption of French settlers and North African Muslims between 1830 and 1915. The first part of the article looks at the existing secondary literature, and analyses colonial medical arguments for and against absinthe drinking in Algeria. The physical and mental consequences of absinthe abuse (the so-called diagnosis of “absinthism”) will also be put into their colonial context.

The second part of the article focuses on the development of theories concerning Muslims drinking absinthe. Many of the medical experts felt that the absinthe consumption of North African Muslims showed that French civilisation had somehow corrupted them, turning a once abstinent population into alcoholics. Did colonial medical experts believe that a form of “fraternisation” or even of civilisation could be achieved by this shared alcoholism, or did they interpret North Africans drinking absinthe as an adoption of French sins, a degenerate form of assimilation, caused by French settlers showing a marked disregard towards their function as role models?