Laudanum Uniform Controlled Substances Act, which regulated opium tincture (Laudanum) as a Schedule II substance (currently DEA #9630), placing even tighter controls on the drug. By the late 20th century, laudanum's use was almost exclusively confined to treating severe diarrhea. The current prescribing information for laudanum in the US states that opium tincture's sole indication is as an anti-diarrheal, although the drug is occasionally prescribed off-label for treating pain and neonatal withdrawal syndrome. Several historical varieties of laudanum exist, including Paracelsus' laudanum, Sydenham's Laudanum (also known as "tinctura opii crocata"), benzoic laudanum ("tinctura opii benzoica"), and deodorized tincture of opium (the
Desensitization (medicine) Desensitization (medicine) In medicine, desensitization is a method to reduce or eliminate an organism's negative reaction to a substance or stimulus. In pharmacology, "drug desensitization" is equivalent to drug tolerance, though the latter term refers to the more general concept of subjects' reactions (positive or negative) to a drug reducing following its repeated use. For example, if a person with diabetes mellitus has a bad allergic reaction to taking a full dose of beef insulin, the person is given a very small amount of the insulin at first, so small that the person has no adverse reaction or very limited