{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,30]],"date-time":"2026-07-30T14:01:58Z","timestamp":1785420118118,"version":"3.56.0"},"reference-count":0,"publisher":"Cambridge University Press (CUP)","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,20]],"date-time":"2026-05-20T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1779235200000},"content-version":"unspecified","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["cambridge.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Br J Hist Sci"],"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n                  <jats:p>Today, the story of the opium trade is an almost archetypal representation of the social, economic and military power dynamics at play in the colonial world. But few, if any, are aware that the European encounter with Chinese opium smoking spurred a European interest in opium vapour therapy, or that its spirited uptake in European medicine inspired a research programme that spanned the continent for more than half a century. Opium smoking was intoxicating, something which experimental science suggested should be impossible, since the chemical properties of opium\u2019s active alkaloids all but precluded the possibility of vaporization. Recalling opium smoking\u2019s entrance into medical practice and the subsequent experimental interest in the chemical constitution of opium vapour, this paper reconstructs the history of European \u2018opium science\u2019. In doing so, it realizes opium science as the site of competing definitions of the biomedical reality implicated in the experience of opium intoxication, one centred on the intoxicated experiences of the colonial subjects themselves. Far from being a simple story of exchange between centres and peripheries, it examines the polycentricity of knowledge circulation in the colonial world and the implacable agency of intoxication.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1017\/s0007087426102039","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,20]],"date-time":"2026-05-20T07:53:52Z","timestamp":1779263632000},"page":"1-21","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/policypage","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["An \u2018unholy\u2019 alchemy: the nineteenth-century European medico-scientific encounter with opium smoking and the circulation of knowledge"],"prefix":"10.1017","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6249-7820","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Matthew","family":"Perkins-McVey","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/03qryx823","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}],"name":"Technion Israel Institute of Technology"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"56","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,20]]},"container-title":["The British Journal for the History of Science"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/services\/aop-cambridge-core\/content\/view\/S0007087426102039","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,20]],"date-time":"2026-05-20T07:53:53Z","timestamp":1779263633000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/product\/identifier\/S0007087426102039\/type\/journal_article"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,20]]},"references-count":0,"alternative-id":["S0007087426102039"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/s0007087426102039","relation":{},"ISSN":["0007-0874","1474-001X"],"issn-type":[{"value":"0007-0874","type":"print"},{"value":"1474-001X","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,20]]},"assertion":[{"value":"\u00a9 The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of British Society for the History of Science.","name":"copyright","label":"Copyright","group":{"name":"copyright_and_licensing","label":"Copyright and Licensing"}},{"value":"This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.","name":"license","label":"License","group":{"name":"copyright_and_licensing","label":"Copyright and Licensing"}},{"value":"This content has been made available to all.","name":"free","label":"Free to read"}]}}