It was pointed out to me that, in Marx's day, opium didn't have those
> extreme connotations. In his day, opium and its derivatives were
> prescribed as a general pain-killer and relaxant, and regarded as
> harmful and as dangerous as aspirin. The quote is one of the few that's
> become _more_ provocative as time's gone by-- but Marx wasn't being much
> harsher than drawing an analogy to, say, Bactine or Excedrin.
Not quite. De Quincey's "Confessions of an English Opium Eater" came out in the 1830's or thereabouts and was quite well known. A sample:
"The
opium-eater loses none of his moral sensibilities or aspirations; he wishes
and longs as earnestly as ever to realize what he believes possible, and
feels to be exacted by duty; but his intellectual apprehension of what is
possible infinitely outruns his power, not of execution only, but even of
power to attempt. He lies under the weight of incubus and night-mare; he
lies in sight of all that he would fain perform, just as a man forcibly
confined to his bed by the mortal languor of a relaxing disease, who is
compelled to witness injury or outrage offered to some object of his
tenderest love: -- he curses the spells which chain him down from motion;
he would lay down his life if he might but get up and walk; but he is
powerless as an infant, and cannot even attempt to rise."
Does this sound like Excedrin to you?
Joanna