Opium Wars

Opium Wars

Aside from being considered as China 's most humbling defeat in European history , the Opium Wars , sometimes referred to as the Anglo-Chinese War also gave way to one of the most inhuman events in European history rivaled only by the excesses committed by the Germans against the Jews While millions of Jews were killed in the holocaust , millions of Chinese were mired in opium addiction when it was completely legalized in China as a result of the second Opium War which ended in 1860 (Hooker

Opium is extracted from the

pods of the poppy seeds . Known scientifically as Papayer somniferum , this plant was already being cultivated during the ancient civilizations found in Mesopotamia , Egypt and Persia . By the nineteenth century , opium was already popular among the British . It was even made available to English babies through the milk of their mothers . It was widely believed that preparations which contained opium kept young kids happy and docile ' Opium was even popular among British , among them poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge who claimed to have written Kubla Khan while experiencing its effects and author Thomas de Quincey , who actually wrote about the marvelous agency of opium , whether for pleasure or for pain ' England was importing about 91 ,000 pounds of opium in 1830 . By 1860 , opium importation rose to a very high level of 280 ,000 pounds (Osler

Opium likewise enjoyed popularity in ancient China . One Chinese poem which was written during the tenth century even celebrated the fact that...