Comité de Salut Public drinks bill...?

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

I heard a reference to the Committee of Public Safety's drinks bill on a radio programme a couple of years ago, but I've never come across a written reference to it. Does such a thing exist, or was it a post-Thermidor 'hey, don't blame us, we were drunk all the time' excuse? I've also heard similar about the Tribunal, but again haven't found a reliable, non-anecdotal, non-hostile source.
I'm also aware that the average alcohol intake was universally far higher from the dawn of time until the 19thc - it was safer than water!
On a related issue, does anyone know if the opiate laudanum was used/abused in France as much as it was in Britain at the time? I don't know how greatly the trade links would have made a difference here. I can't remember ever having come across a reference in anything on the Revolution - the Romantic poets in Britain in the 1790's were living on the stuff - but I did wonder if that, rather than the usually assumed bisexuality, may have been Camille Desmoulins' 'vice'?

Comments

[lucilla-1789.livejournal.com]

Laudanum was used for digestion problems, aches, insomnia, anxiety etc. but then, the whole 18th Century medication system was so horrible, that many people tried to avoid doctors alltogether. Bloodletting to cure fever killed a lot of people. (They also used mummy powder, for any health problem, which sounds really weird.)

Drug addiction became topic of public discussion somewhere during 19th Century and was considered to be a problem amongst neurotic, lonely, middle aged women. People also gave laudanum to babies to keep them quiet, which caused loss of appetite and made some people to be addicted most of their lives.

18th Century is famous for tea, coffee and hot chocolat, which were really trendy. Of course I'm biased here (I'm teetotaller) but I'd think, that they drank less alcohol than earlier generations. (17th Century diet would kill us all in few weeks)Compared to earlier centuries the prefered behaviour was calm and rational, and you cannot really stay that way if you drink only beer or wine the whole day.

Most of the people of course drank water more than anything else. In cities it was considered unclean (with good reason) but most of the people lived on countryside.

So the "safer than water" means city life and medical opinions of those days that banned also all vegetables as dangerous. If you lived in a hut near the woods, like 99% of people in any nation those days, there were clean streams and wells. People also washed themselves with water in countryside, but not in cities...

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

I was debating the washing thing with a friend a few days ago: he maintained they wore clean linen, rather than washing the body, because of a fear of water-borne disease - I live in a house with no central heating or - as of 2 weeks ago - hot running water, and I think it's because, unless you were happy to sit in a tub in front of a ground floor fireplace while some unfortunate person filled and heated dozens of kettles from a pump or well, it's a lot easier to just put on a clean shirt!

[estellacat.livejournal.com]

The bourgeoisie were actually bathing on a regular basis (about every week or two) by the end of the 18th century in France--though it took the aristocracy longer to catch on, and the poorer members of the Third Estate most often didn't have the luxury of taking baths.