The following sections of this BookRags Literature Study Guide is offprint from Gale's For Students Series: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly Studied Works: Introduction, Author Biography, Plot Summary, Characters, Themes, Style, Historical Context, Critical Overview, Criticism and Critical Essays, Media Adaptations, Topics for Further Study, Compare & Contrast, What Do I Read Next?, For Further Study, and Sources.
(c)1998-2002; (c)2002 by Gale. Gale is an imprint of The Gale Group, Inc., a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Gale and Design and Thomson Learning are trademarks used herein under license.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Encyclopedia of Popular Fiction: "Social Concerns", "Thematic Overview", "Techniques", "Literary Precedents", "Key Questions", "Related Titles", "Adaptations", "Related Web Sites". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults: "About the Author", "Overview", "Setting", "Literary Qualities", "Social Sensitivity", "Topics for Discussion", "Ideas for Reports and Papers". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
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The term derives from the Greek narkōtikos, meaning benumbing. It was originally used (since the fourteenth century) to refer to drugs that produced a stupor associated with pain relief (analgesia), primarily OPIUM and its derivatives, the morphine-like strong ANALGESICS, or the opium-like compounds (OPIOIDS)—these, in moderate doses, dull the senses, relieve pain, and induce profound sleep but in large doses cause stupor coma, or convulsions.
During the nineteenth century, the term was widely used to include a number of agents that produced sleep. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the term came to imply drugs that could lead to addiction, and so by the turn of the twentieth century, "narcotic" came to describe drugs as diverse as opioids and COCAINE. During the twentieth century, the term became widely used in a legal context to refer to psychoactive drugs and drugs of abuse—those subject to restriction—as "addictive narcotics," whether in fact the agents were physiologically addictive and narcotic or not. This imprecise usage has left the term nebulous, although it is still used extensively in the media and by the general population. The term is no longer used in scientific discourse to categorize drugs.
Drug Types; Opiates/Opioids; World Health Organization Expert Committee on Drug Dependence)
JAFFE, J. H., & MARTIN, W. R. (1990). Opioid analgesics and antagonists. In A. G. Gilman et al. (Eds.), Goodman and Gilman's the pharmacological basis of therapeutics, 8th ed. New York: Pergamon.