Freud

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A friend of Freud died of a cocaine overdose. Can you tell me more about this? Did cocaine require a prescription at that time and did Freud author it? Was it a suicide or accidental overdose? What part did Freud play in this incident? Did Freud continue to use cocaine throughout his life or did he stop?

-- C. Eugene Walker (genewalker@iname.com), July 31, 2001

Answers

Do you mean Ernst von Fleischl-Marxow? F-Mwas an assistant of Ernst Brucke's, and Freud's immediate superior. F-M was suffering from a chronic infection, and had become addicted to morphine, which he was using as a pain killer. Freud recommended cocaine to him as an alternative. The addictive properties of cocaine were not yet known (or rather, were just becoming known) at the time. Prescription was not really an issue. Drugs were not controlled then in the same way they are now. Freud himself appears to have used cocaine intermintently to alleviate depression and elevate his own modd from the mid-1880s through into the 1890s. The matter is discussed briefly in both Ernest Jones' _The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud_ (vol. 1, chap. 6) and in Peter Gay's _Freud: A Life for Our Time_ (pp. 42-45).

-- Christopher Green (christo@yorku.ca), August 09, 2001.

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