Foreword to ‘The unknown aspects of opium’

Professor Oscar Salemink has written the foreword to the Vietnamese translation and release of the colonial era treatise on opium written by the two French doctors Laurent Joseph Gaide and L. Neuberger in 1938, ‘The unknown face of opium’ (Le visage inconnu de l’opium, Bulletin des Amis du Vieux Hué 25(23), 1938).

In Vietnamese, the original French title has been slightly adjusted to ‘The unknown aspects of opium’ (Những Điều Chưa Biết Về Thuốc Phiện).

In the foreword, Salemink offers a critical history of opium in colonial and neocolonial adventures and rule – including during the Vietnam War – and puts the original treatise written in a colonial context into a modern perspective.