Dangerous Nostrums

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 16, 1909

Dangerous Nostrums

Headache Powders

An interesting article appeared in the Literary Digest of Feb. 20, 1909, entitled “Is Sudden Death Hereditary?” This intimates to us the importance of this subject. In New York in 1902, the death-rate from this cause was one and one third per thousand, or six times as great as the typhoid death-rate. This rate is increasing year by year. It has been noted that this death-rate varies very closely as the consumption of headache powders varies. Headache powders depend almost entirely for their effect upon acetanilid, a powerful coal-tar product. Dr. Hare, of Philadelphia, a leading therapeutist in this country, says of this drug: “On the nervous system acetanilid has been found to act as a sedative, the sensory portion of the nerves and spinal cord particularly being quieted. . . . The action of this drug upon the blood is more pronounced than its influence upon any other part of the body, causing this tissue to become brownish-red, decreasing its oxygen-carrying power, and, finally, reducing the hemoglobin to methemoglobin to a very considerable extent.”

White and Wilcox in their book, “Materia Medica,” which describes the different drugs, say:—

“In the blood it causes the red corpuscles to break up, and arrests the movements of the white. Upon the heart, this substance depresses the heart. It has a directly paralyzing action on the cardiac muscle. It is a powerful analgesic. Dose, two to five grains.”

A Chicago physician gives the following experience with Orangine, a noted headache remedy, the active principle of which is acetanilid:—

“I was first called to see the patient, a young lady, physically sound, who had been taking Orangine powders for a number of weeks for insomnia. The rest of the family noticed that she was very blue; and for this reason I was called. When I saw the patient, she complained of a sense of faintness and inability to keep warm. At this time she had taken a box of six Orangine powders within about eight hours. She was warned of the danger of continuing the indiscriminate use of the remedy, but insisted that many of her friends had used it, and claimed that it was harmless. The family promised to see that she did not obtain any more of this remedy. Three days later, however, I was called to the house and found the patient dead. The family said that she had gone to her room the evening before in her usual health. The next morning, the patient not appearing, they investigated and found her dead. The case was reported to the coroner, and the coroner’s verdict was; ‘Death was from the effect of an overdose of Orangine powders, administered by her own hand, whether accidental or otherwise, unknown to the jury.’”

Bromoseltzer is another of this class. The full dose is a heaping teaspoonful. This amount contains ten grains of acetanilid. The maximum dose, as given by the “Materia Medica,” is five grains. The prescribed dose of Bromoseltzer is dangerous, and has been known to produce sudden collapse.

The Headache Habit

Such drugs as acetanilid, when taken for headache, simply benumb the nerves, so that the pain is not felt. It does not cure the condition, but simply deadens the feeling. When the effect of the drug has passed off, the headache very often remains, with additional and uncomfortable feelings superadded. This calls for another dose of the acetanilid-bearing prescription. This time it must be increased somewhat, in order to produce the same effect. The physical condition which has caused the headache still remains, and is not only not relieved or benefited by the drug, but is even aggravated, so that a person habitually has headache unless he is under the influence of the drug. The acetanilid habit is contracted, and a person must go on taking the drug in increasing doses.

A Modern Slave Trade

is a title that might be appropriately applied to the use of the various soothing sirups which flood the market. Almost without exception these preparations depend for their “soothing” properties upon opium or morphin. Innocent children are thus given the habit by unsuspecting mothers, and thus become slaves to the opium or morphin habit. This may not manifest itself until later in life, when some accident or severe pain caused by disease calls for the use of morphin to deaden the pain. The old habit is thus set into a flame. The person recognizes that for which he has felt a longing throughout his life, but has never before found. The habit is immediately taken up, and the person finds himself a slave. The advertising sheet flaunts the significant words in our faces, “Baby Cries for Mother Somebody’s Soothing Sirup.” Of course it does. It has the habit. It has been repeatedly noticed by druggists that mothers will purchase possibly a small bottle a week of soothing sirup for a time; then later possibly two small ones; then a large one, gradually increasing the amount given to the child. The baby demands it and cries for it. The mother, not knowing the reason (which is simply that the child has contracted the morphin habit), yields, and furnishes that which is demanded by the craving appetite of the child.—Extract from a talk by Dr. W. A. Ruble at the Last General Conference.