The Gold Cure

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To know American History is to know the history of substance abuse. Whether alcohol, tobacco, or narcotics, Americans have sought the comfort of substances to ease the pains of the world and to "lubricate" life. And as long as there have been addicts in the United States, there have been others who claim to know the way out of addiction. At the end of the nineteenth century, Dr. Leslie Keeley claimed to have invented a cure to solve the addiction crisis he saw in the US. In order to deliver this cure, Keeley opened at least one treatment center in every US state. His cure? Injecting gold into the veins of patients. Chase a dragon along a gilded path on this episode of Footnoting History.

Host: Josh

Further Reading

Hickman, Timothy. The Secret Leprosy of Modern Days: Narcotic Addiction and Cultural Crisis in the United States, 1870-1920. University of Massachusetts Press, (2007).

---. “Keeping Secrets: Leslie Keeley, the Gold Cure, and the 19th Century Neuroscience of Addiction.” Addiction 113:9, (September 2018): 1739-1749.

Keeley, Leslie. Opium: Its Use, Abuse and Cure; or, From Bondage to Freedom. The L.E. Keeley Co., (1892). 

​Music: "Evening Melodrama" by Kevin Macleod (www.incompetech.com)

Leslie Keeley