Glass bottle with cork stopper contained in the wooden chest with brass handle on top and hinged doors. Empty apart from another stopper. Handwritten label: Laudanum. Also known as Tincture of Opium, Laudanum is an alcoholic herbal preparation containing approximately 10% powdered opium by weight (the equivalent of 1% morphine). It is reddish-brown in colour and extremely bitter to the taste. Laudanum contains almost all of the opium alkaloids, including morphine and codeine. A potent narcotic by virtue of its high morphine concentration, laudanum was historically used to treat a variety of ailments, but its principal use was as an analgesic and cough suppressant. Until the early 20th century, laudanum was sold without a prescription and was a constituent of many patent medicines. Today, laudanum is strictly regulated and controlled throughout most of the world.