Insel's word in W&F made me go LIU, to see if I remembered correctly what drug it was. Gurunet says:
lau·da·num (lôd'n-əm)
n.
A tincture of opium, formerly used as a drug.

[New Latin, perhaps alteration of Medieval Latin labdanum, labdanum. See labdanum.]

I wondered about tincture; M-W has:
Main Entry: 1tinc·ture
Pronunciation: 'ti[ng](k)-ch&r
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin tinctura act of dyeing, from tinctus, past participle of tingere to tinge
1 a archaic : a substance that colors, dyes, or stains b : COLOR, TINT
2 a : a characteristic quality : CAST b : a slight admixture : TRACE
3 obsolete : an active principle or extract
4 : a heraldic metal, color, or fur
5 : a solution of a medicinal substance in an alcoholic menstruum

THEN, I had to LU that last word! Gurunet:
men·stru·um (mĕn'strū-əm)
n., pl. -stru·ums or -stru·a (-strū-ə).
A solvent, especially one used in extracting compounds from plant and animal tissues and preparing drugs.

[Middle English, menstruation, from Medieval Latin mēnstruum, sing. of Latin mēnstrua, menses. See menstruate.]


But all this effort (!) still didn't answer my question satisfactorily: I feel sure that I've read that laudanum came in powdered form; yet the def. said tincture, and I thought tincture meant liquid. Does anyone know how laudanum was administered?

well many opiate compounds readily crystalize, --into powders of white, yellow, tan-depending on purity. They just as readily dissolve into water or alcohol (for water, you often need to apply some heat.)

heroin is a good example--sold as a whitish powder that looks like 10X(confectioners) sugar, it can be disolved in a teaspoon of water with the heat of a match (a junk's 'works' often include a spoon.) if needed, they will use scrapes of tin foil- but its easier to extract all the liquified heroin out of a spoon.

Morphine was often shipped out as small vials of powder too, to which a small about of hot sterile water was added to 'reconstitute' it. (i think it has a longer shelf life as powder)

i think (just a WAG)that heroin, and other opiates disolve more readily in alcohol. which was used along with sugar and flavorings) to make 'tinctures' --syrupy like liquids.
most opiates are bitter to taste, naturaly. needless to say they were very addictive!

your stomach (the acid) and your liver, are remarkable effecient at removing the opiate compounds from your blood system, so the 'high' of ingested compounds is much 'lower'.
Mainlining (injecting into a vein) is a much more effective way to introduce drugs.

an alternate method was practiced in mediaval europe and in the americas--enimas! the indians of Central america had ritual enimas, with cocaine and marijuana compounds infused into alcohol, and then administered rectally. in europe, opium paste (raw poppy juice) was mixed with herbs, and used by woman as dildoes--stories about women 'riding high' on broomsticks have an element of truth!
in both cases, the drugs were applied not to skin, but to what i know as 'mucous membranes' (semi skin that is wet) the inside of your mouth, nostril, inside eyelids would be others. inhaling (snorting) cocaine through the nose is still practiced, and for the same reason. mucous membranes allow many chemicals to pass through (regualar skin resist such transfers)

there was a interesting article about central american enima practices about 2 years ago in NATURAL HISTORYmagazine.

Wow, Helen, I'm impressed. Made a study of this, haven't you?

Nah, she just remembers everything.

Dear Jackie: there used to be a number of "tintures" because alcohol dissolves many things. Iodine used to be used as a tincture. Belladonna,etc.,etc.
Tincture of laudanum was used not too long ago as a potent relief from diarrhea. It tasted horrid, but there
were idiots who despite the vile taste became addicted to it. There is little "praise" for it now.
Speaking of tinctures, a very popular over the counter
alcoholic beverage for relief of "feminine complaints was "
"Lydia Pinkam's": refined ladies imbibed it without fear of being accused of alcoholism.

In reply to:

---

Speaking of tinctures, a very popular over the counter
alcoholic beverage for relief of "feminine complaints was "
"Lydia Pinkam's": refined ladies imbibed it without fear of being accused of alcoholism.

---

We'll drink a drink a drink
to Lily the Pink a Pink a Pink
The saviour of the human ra-huh-hace
For she invented
Medicinal Compound
Most efficacious
In every case.

Bingley

One of the Pinkham slogans was "A baby in every bottle."
Considering the amount of alcohol in a bottle ! well ! after imbibing a bottle's worth of the liquid - for more inhibited ladies of older times - those inhibitions would have dropped like an anvil into water!
There was a New Hampshire family who lived nearby who inherited the Pinkham fortune and were living very well by "clipping the coupons" well into the 1970s.

Dear Jackie: I just remembered that the usual anti-diarrhea
preparation was "paregoric". The etymology is interesting.
paregoric

SYLLABICATION: par·e·gor·ic
PRONUNCIATION: pr-gôrk, -gr-
NOUN: A camphorated tincture of opium, taken internally for the relief of diarrhea and intestinal pain.
ETYMOLOGY: Late Latin pargoricus, soothing, from Greek pargorikos, from pargorein, to talk over, soothe, from pargoros, consoling : para-, beside; see para–1 + agora, agora; see agora1.

Incidentally, the "camphor" made it extra nasty to take.
Maybe it was intended as a deterrent to misuse.

Which reminded me of something from deep in my misspent youth. A girl I dated for a while earned her way through university by working for the local pharmacist in his shop. She said that there were any number of elderly ladies who came in and bought up to half a dozen bottles of Buckley's Canadiol (a "cough" mixture) a week.

The pharmacist told her why - the alcohol content, of course - so, being who she was, she thought she'd give it a try and drank a whole bottle. She was violently ill and threw up regularly for most of the next two days.

Not the brightest of ladies, and, last I heard, was a prison officer in Western Australia.

>>a prison officer in Western Australia

Was she drafted in and then decided to make a career out of it?

Could have been, JW, could have been!