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Absinthe: From green fairy to moral panic
The remarkable fall of absinthe: from 19th-century ‘Green Fairy’ to scourge of society. Absinthe, once the ‘Green Fairy’ – muse of painters and poets – came to haunt the last decades of 19th-century France.
The plant-based essential oils – from wormwood, aniseed, fennel, mint and more – that gave absinthe its distinct flavour, medico-psychiatric experts warned, could provoke murderous rage in its consumers. The French temperance advocate Paul-Maurice Legrain – very probably doctor ‘L’ – warned in his 1906 monograph Elements of Mental Medicine: ‘Never will a consumer, sitting down in full lucidity in front of his glass of absinthe, be able to affirm whether in a few moments he will not be committing a crime. This perceived threat of absinthe-induced violence loomed over those innocently enjoying their early evenings on the terraces of fashionable cafés, as, especially in the 1880s and 1890s, sensational reports about so-called ‘absinthe murders’ appeared in French newspapers.
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