Did you know that the poet A.E. Housman,best known for his "Shropshire Lad" cycle of poems, once took heroin?
When he was in hospital with serious heart trouble over Christmas 1935, it was given to him as a soporific; which shows how very different medical procedures were eighty years ago! From this experience of the drug, Housman made the interesting comment, "I learnt what it is to be totally deprived of intellect".
As far as is known, he felt no inclination to renew the experience, and he died the following spring.
(Source: Peter Parker: "Housman Country")
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