An Anatomy of Addiction: Sigmund Freud, William Halsted, and the Miracle Drug Cocaine

In the 1880s, Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, and William Halsted, the founder of modern surgery, independently and personally discovered the powerful anesthetic, and terribly addictive, effects of cocaine. Markel (Quarantine!), a medical historian at the University of Michigan, eloquently tells the parallel stories of these two pathbreaking physicians and how their stories intersect in remarkable and sometimes tragic ways. The ready availability of cocaine starting in the 1860s drove Freud to experiment with the drug as an antidote to morphine addiction. Using cocaine to treat his own migraines and anxiety, he became addicted. At about the same time, when surgery remained dangerous because of easy infection and the lack of effective anesthetics, William Halsted in New York discovered the anesthetic effects of cocaine, and it appeared that the latter problem was solved; however, experimenting with cocaine himself, Halsted steadily sunk into such a terrible addiction that his brilliant career as a surgeon ended. Reviewing debates over the impact of addiction on the two physicians and why they fell prey to cocaine, Markel concludes simply and fairly that even these "intellectual giants were all too human." Markel's extraordinary achievement combines first-rate history of medicine and outstanding cultural history. Illus. (July)