Laudanum his "archanum" or "laudanum", may or may not have contained opium. Paracelsus' laudanum was strikingly different from the standard laudanum of the 17th century and beyond, containing crushed pearls, musk, amber, and other substances. One researcher has documented that "Laudanum, as listed in the "London Pharmacopoeia" (1618), was a pill made from opium, saffron, castor, ambergris, musk and nutmeg". Laudanum remained largely unknown until the 1660s when English physician Thomas Sydenham (1624–1689) compounded a proprietary opium tincture that he also named laudanum, although it differed substantially from the laudanum of Paracelsus. In 1676 Sydenham published a seminal work, "Medical Observations
Drug Drug A drug is any substance (other than food that provides nutritional support) that, when inhaled, injected, smoked, consumed, absorbed via a patch on the skin, or dissolved under the tongue causes a temporary physiological (and often psychological) change in the body. In pharmacology, a drug is a chemical substance of known structure, other than a nutrient of an essential dietary ingredient, which, when administered to a living organism, produces a biological effect. A pharmaceutical drug, also called a medication or medicine, is a chemical substance used to treat, cure, prevent, or diagnose a disease or to promote well-being. Traditionally