"Yes," Mary replies. "It is related to Laudanum. There are even more potent versions of it in my time." Including heroin, which hadn't exactly been the miracle drug everyone had hoped it would be.

"I should think that of all surgeons an army surgeon would be well-equipped with pain medication," she says. Mary pauses their conversation for a moment to get the whistling kettle off of the fire. Returning, she pours the water over the tea bags in the cups, then hands one to John. "It seemed a standard thing during the war my husband fought in."

Men had returned home addicted, but otherwise they would have been in excruciating pain. Mary wasn't sure which was worse.