The secret leprosy of modern days : narcotic addiction and cultural crisis in the United States, 1870-1920 / Timothy A. Hickman.

Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press, 2007.

xiv, 190 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Includes bibliographical references (p. 155-178) and index.

Introduction : the modernity of addiction/the addiction of modernity -- Opium eating and political subjectivity before 1870 -- Narcotic addiction : "the secret leprosy of modern days" -- Subjects of desire : race, gender and the personification of addiction -- Legislating professional authority : the Harrison Narcotic Act of 1914 -- The saved and the damned : the medicolegal solution to the double meaning of addiction.