大象传媒

Derived from the juice of the poppy, it relieves our pain and cures our insomnia. It may even inspire great art. It also causes addiction, misery and death. Historian Lucy Inglis' new book explores man's long and complex relationship with opium.

After the Second Opium War of the mid-19th Century there was extensive Chinese immigration into the west coast of the United States. This led to the establishment of "Chinatowns" in cities like San Francisco, and Chinese immigrants soon made up 10 per cent of California's population. There was widespread resentment of these alien incomers - a resentment fuelled by their habit of bringing with them "their prime means of relaxation at the end of a long day: opium."

Opium dens sprang up and became a focus for what critics described as "licentiousness, debauchery, loathsome disease and death..."

But in at least one South Dakota town, Chinese-American relations conspicuously thrived: Deadwood - home of Calamity Jane.

Milk of Paradise is written by Lucy Inglis and abridged by Anna Magnusson.

The reader is Anita Vettesse.

The producer is David Jackson Young.