Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why Part 30

"Weakness after illness, "Nervous disorders, "Sleeplessness, "Influenza, "Whooping cough, "Exhaustion of mind and body, "Allays thirst, "Restores digestive function, "Enables great physical toil to be undergone, "Great value in excesses of all kinds, "General debility, "Prevents colds and chills, "Makes pure, rich blood, "Anaemia, "Invaluable after pleurisy, pneumonia, etc., "Aid to the vocal organs.

"This is a fairly respectable list of complaints, and the very fact that these preparations of coca wine are put forward as a cure for so wide a range of various complaints is in itself a condemnation of them.

"When any particular remedy is said to be of universal application for a large number of different complaints it may be looked upon with great suspicion.

"It must always be remembered that there is the commercial side to this question. The proprietors have no particular regard for the welfare of the people; their business is to make a profit, and many of them gain enormous fortunes. By skilful and lavish advertis.e.m.e.nts, and by carefully worded testimonials, they appeal to the credulity of the public, and often deceive even those who regard themselves as belonging to the thinking cla.s.ses.

"There are two specific dangers in regard to these wines. They are ordinary wines, either port or sherry for the most part, and therefore strongly alcoholic. The user of them is in considerable danger of cultivating a taste for alcohol, and certainly, there is the greatest possible danger to any one having had the appet.i.te, of reviving it.

"The dose is an elastic one, it can be repeated with considerable frequency three or four times a day.

"What would be said of growing girls or youths having recourse three or four times a day to the wine bottle? This is exactly what they are doing when coca, and the so-called food wines are placed in their hands as medicine. They like the pleasant taste, there is the call of habit and appet.i.te, and so there arises the greatest possible danger of a general liking for alcoholic liquors being set up. The ailing man or woman of set years is in similar danger, for they are having recourse to alcohol when their powers of mind and body are to some extent exhausted, and they are thus less able to resist the fascination for alcohol that may so quickly be brought into existence.

"Another element of danger is that the recourse to coca and kola is an attempt to get more out of the body, and the mind, than nature intended. Overwork, overstrain, worry, all produce exhaustion of physical and nervous power. Nature pulls us up by a.s.serting herself, and we feel run down and seedy, and, perhaps, quite unwell. What is wanted is rest, proper diet, and change.

These would quickly be restorative, and once again we should be fit for the duties of life.

"In a busy age there is the strongest possible temptation to seek a restorative by some occult method, rather than to give the rest and refreshment that nature demands. It is upon this that the whole trade in these so-called restoratives depends.

"There is no food quality in alcohol, cocaine or kola, but there is in them all a narcotizing influence that in its lesser stages is hurtful, and in its greater stages disastrous.

"The cocaine habit may be cultivated as easily as the alcohol habit, and the two forms of disease, alcoholism and cocainism, are by no means rare. The great factor in each of them is the loss of will power, and when that is accomplished the descent to complete moral and physical ruin is quite easy.

"A pure and simple life, in accord with the laws of health and hygiene, is the panacea both for the maintenance, and the restoration of health, and that is what we should strive to aim at, rather than having recourse to drugs that are not only ineffective, but positively dangerous."--_United Temperance Gazette._

In Dr. Milner Fothergill's _Practioners' Hand-book of Treatment_, fourth edition, the following statement is made:--

"Coca wine, and other medicated wines are largely sold to people who are considered, and consider themselves, to be total abstainers. It is not uncommon to hear the mother of a family say, 'I never allow my girls to touch stimulants of any kind, but I give them each a gla.s.s of coca wine at 11 in the morning, and again at bedtime.' Originally coca wine was made from coca leaves, but it is now commonly a solution of the alkaloid, in a sweet and strongly alcoholic wine. This is really the gist of the whole matter; coca wine is largely consumed by people who fondly believe themselves to be total abstainers, and who are active enough in denouncing those who take a little wine, or a gla.s.s of beer at their meals. The sooner their delusion is dispelled the better for themselves, and for the unfortunate children over whom they exercise supervision."

Another physician tells of seeing a distinguished ecclesiastical dignitary, a sworn foe of alcohol and its congeners, giving his young child a generous daily allowance of one of these wines.

The user of coca wines runs a double risk--an alcohol craving may be revived, or created; and, at the same time, cocainism may be set up, and nothing but physical, mental and moral ruin follow.

The _British Medical Journal_ of January 23rd, 1897, says:--

"There can be no doubt that in many parts of the world cocaine inebriety is largely on the increase. The greatest number of victims is to be found among society women, and among women who have adopted literature as a profession; and there is no doubt that a considerable proportion of chronic cocainists have fallen under the dominion of the drug from a desire to stimulate their powers of imagination. Others have acquired that habit quite innocently from taking coca wines. The symptoms experienced by the victims of the cocaine habit are illusions of sight and hearing, neuromuscular irritability, and localized anaesthesia.

After a time insomnia supervenes, and the patient displays a curious hesitancy, and an inability to arrive at a decision on even the most trivial subjects."

Dr. F. Coley says later on in the article before referred to:--

"There is another combination which, though utterly absurd from a therapeutical point of view, is not in itself quite so dangerous as coca wine. It will probably do a larger amount of mischief, however, because more people take it. I refer to the various preparations, so largely advertised, which profess to be compounded of port wine, extract of malt, and extract of meat.

To the medically uneducated public this doubtless seems a most promising combination: extract of meat for food, extract of malt to aid digestion, port wine to make blood. Surely the very thing to strengthen all who are weak, and to hasten the restoration of convalescents. Unfortunately what the advertis.e.m.e.nts say--that this stuff is largely prescribed by medical men--is not wholly untrue.

"I do not suppose that any physician of anything like front rank would make such a mistake. But busy general pract.i.tioners may be excused if they prove to be a bit oblivious of physiology, and so become attracted by a formula which is more plausible than sound. In the first place, we all know that extract of meat is not food at all. From the manner of its production, it cannot contain an appreciable quant.i.ty of proteid material. It consists mainly of creatin, and creatinin, and salts. These are, it is needless to say, incapable of acting as food. Extract of meat, and similar preparations, have their uses however; made into 'beef-tea,' their meaty flavor often enables patients to take a quant.i.ty of bread, which would otherwise be refused; or lentil flour, or some other matter may be added. In this way, though not food itself, it becomes a most useful aid to feeding. It is besides, a harmless stimulant, especially when taken, as it always should be, hot. It should be needless to add that to combine extract of meat with port wine is simply to ignore its real use. The only intelligible basis for such an invention must be the wholly erroneous notion that extract of meat is a food."

The prices asked for "secret nostrums" are said by chemists to be ofttimes far beyond the value of the materials. Of one article the _New Idea_, a druggists' paper, says:--

"It retails at $1.50 per bottle. Such an article could be put up for less than fifteen cents, including bottle, leaving by no means a small margin for the profit of its manufacturers."

The same paper says of a cure for catarrh, neuralgia, etc. sold in the form of a small ball:--

"This cure costs $2.50 per ball. A handsome profit could be made upon it at 5 cents a ball."

Some proprietary preparations are not harmful, but are positively inert.

The Ma.s.s. State Board of Health in report of 1896 gives _Kaskine_ as an example of these. Although sold at a dollar an ounce it was found to consist of nothing but granulated sugar of the fine grade used in homeopathic pharmacy, without any medication or flavoring whatever.

Dr. Edward Von Adelung in an article in _Life and Health_, Dec., 1897, tells of a well advertised cure for consumption, the a.n.a.lysis of which showed it to be composed of water, slightly colored by the addition of a very small quant.i.ty of red wine, and two mineral acids, muriatic and impure sulphuric, in quant.i.ties just sufficient to lend it a taste! He says:--

"Fortuitously I had the opportunity of observing the influence of this remedy on a consumptive who took it regularly, and who was so enamored of its favorable action that he gave up his business to conduct an agency for its sale. It was not long after he had entered upon his new vocation that I received word of his death, due to pulmonary hemorrhage."

The "returned missionary" fraud has been exposed by different druggists'

papers, among them the _New Idea_. The "missionary" would advertise a "free cure," if people would send to him. The "cure" would be in the form of a prescription. There being no drugs in any drugstore bearing the names given in the prescription, the dupe was expected to pay an exorbitant price for them to the philanthropic "missionary." In one case of this kind the "medicinal plants brought from South America, the only place where they grew," were upon examination by chemists of the _New Idea_ found to be ordinary drugs, not one of which comes from South America.

The same paper tells of another "South American" fraud, 60,000 bottles of which were said to be sold in Detroit in a few weeks, by an itinerating vendor.

A certain liver, and kidney, and constipation cure, sold in the form of herbs, is said by _New Idea_ to be chiefly couch gra.s.s, and senna leaves. Yet it sells for 25 cents for a small package.

To this paper the public is also indebted for the information that a kind of wafer advertised to "cure in a few days all coughs, colds, irritation of the uvula and tonsils, influenza, bronchitis, asthma, sore throat, consumption, and all diseases of the lungs and chest" was found to consist wholly of sugar and corn starch!

_Medical World_ recently told of the investigation of "H----" by Prof.

John Uri Lloyd of Cincinnati. It was advertised as a plant discovered by a doctor traveling in Florida. Its juices were said to be antidotal to snake poisoning, and would also cure the opium habit. Prof. Lloyd found it to be a liquid consisting of a solution of sulphate of morphine and salicylic acid, in alcohol and glycerine, with suitable coloring matter.

Another fraud exposed by _New Idea_ was a "cure" for the peculiar ills of women. The cure is put up in the form of little oblong blocks about a half inch in length.

"A circular accompanies them, and is well calculated to produce alarm in the young. It is another sample of the demoralizing doc.u.ments which unscrupulous quacks are continually circulating among the laity, in order to create alarm, and profit by this alarm."

After giving a description of the diseases peculiar to the s.e.x it is stated that all of these are curable by using eight dollars worth of this wonderful medicine.

_New Idea_ continues:--

"The _cure_ consists, according to our examination, of nothing but flour, made into a paste and allowed to harden in the form of small oblong blocks. Evidently the quack relied upon the faith-cure principle, and his auxiliary treatment, as set forth in the rules of living given in the circular."

While these inert preparations are of the nature of frauds, they will not injure the health, nor make drunkards, or opium fiends, as the disguised preparations of whisky and morphine are likely to do.

That the use of patent medicines has made many drunkards is a fact well attested. The American a.s.sociation for the Study of Inebriety appointed a committee several years ago to investigate the various nostrums advertised especially for the benefit of alcohol and opium inebriates.

The report of this committee, prepared by Dr. N. Roe Bradner, late of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane, in speaking of the marvelous cures advertised in connection with the use of these mixtures, calls them "volumes of gilded falsehood, designed for an innocent, unsuspecting public," and adds:--

"The use of such nostrums would do more toward confirming than eradicating the habit, if it existed, and would invite and create addiction to an almost hopeless fatality, where the habit had not previously existed. Insanity, palsy, idiocy, and many forms of physical, moral and mental ruin have followed the sale of these nostrums throughout our land."

Dr. E. A. Craighill, President of the Virginia State Pharmaceutical a.s.sociation, is quoted in the July (1897) _Journal of Inebriety_, as saying:--

"In my experience I have known of men filling drunkards' graves who learned to drink taking some advertised bitters as legitimate medicine. It would be hard to estimate the number of young brains ruined, and the maturer opium wrecks from nostrums of this nature. I could write a volume on the mischief that is being done every day to body, mind and soul, all over the land, by the thousands of miserable frauds that are being poured down the throats of not only ignorant people, but, alas, intelligent ones, too."

A lady informed the writer recently that her brother had taken forty bottles of one of these preparations, and had become a drunkard through it.

Many seem unaware that the ethics of the medical profession restrain reputable physicians from advertising themselves or their remedies, so that these much-lauded patent medicines are put upon the market by quacks, never by physicians of good standing. It is purely a money-making enterprise, without consideration of the health or destruction of the people. It is popularly supposed that physicians decry these things from fear that their sale will injure regular practice. This is another error as they increase work for the doctor by aggravating existing trouble, as well as causing disease where there was only slight disturbance.

Dr. F. E. Stewart, Ph. G., of Detroit, Mich., says in the October, 1897, _Life and Health_:--

"Taking all these facts into consideration, it is apparent that the patent, trade-mark and copyright laws should be so interpreted and administered by the court that they will secure the greatest good to the greatest number, and aid in attaining the end of government, viz., 'moral, intellectual and physical perfection.' It is not the object of these laws to create odious monopolies, to throw a mantle of protection over fraud, to enable quacks and charlatans to encroach on the domain of legitimate medical and pharmacal practice, or to support an advertising business designed to mislead the public in regard to the nature and value of medicines as curative agents. The morals of the community are injured by some of this advertising, intellectual vigor is impaired by the use of many things advertised, and physical, as well as moral, degradation frequently results. Crime is often inculcated--even the crime of murder, that the nostrum manufacturer may profit thereby. Cures for incurable diseases are promised, and guaranteed. Every scheme that human and devilish ingenuity can devise to wring money from its victim is resorted to, which can be employed without actually bringing the advertisers into court. All this wicked quackery parades under the guise of 'patent' medicines, and asks the protection of our courts. It is time for the medical and pharmaceutic professions to unite, and unmask this monster, and show the public its true nature. And this can be accomplished in no better way than through a study of the object of the laws which the secret nostrum manufacturers are now endeavoring to prost.i.tute for their own advantage, and the teaching of the public what these laws were enacted for.