Narcotics as Quieting Medicines
By Kate Lindsay
There is not a drug more baleful, dangerous, and deadly in its effects on the life and health of infancy, than opium and its preparations; and no other has been so commonly used. In the days of our grandmothers it was a common thing to have in the nursery medicine chest the laudanum and paregoric bottles. When the little one had the colic, or was fretful because of improper food, heat, skin irritation, or any other cause, the paregoric bottle was easy of access; and so the most irresponsible persons were trusted to drop out the one, two, five, or more drops of the stronger opiate; or the quarter, half, or whole spoonful of the paregoric,—no attention being paid to the size of the spoon, or the consistency of the preparation. Often the bottle had been purchased months before at the druggist’s, and prepared of a known strength. In the months it has stood on the shelf, a third, or maybe a half, of the volatile fluid used to hold it in solution has evaporated. What if a drop be equal now in strength to four or five of the drops at first! Nobody thinks of danger, until it is found that the baby will not arouse out of its stupor. The physician is sent for, and finds the little one dying from opium poisoning, and is told by the nurse or mother that it had only one or two drops of laudanum. She had often given such a dose to her other children without any bad effects. The little one may die, or it may live, with a damaged brain and nervous system; but, generally, the mother will not believe that she has poisoned her baby, and often goes on with the same reckless use of the narcotics. There are numerous special opiate preparations known as “soothing sirups,” for use among infants. In all of them the special soothing drug is opium, or some of its products. The amount of these drugs used may be imagined by looking over the advertising columns of any popular paper or magazine. No one takes notes, and there are no statistics, whereby we may learn the number of little ones who have thus been crippled in mental capacity, or soothed to their eternal sleep. The use of tea and coffee, and the habit of compelling the infant or small child to sleep with his father who is a user of tobacco, or to breathe the air filled with the fumes of the filthy weed, has often a very baneful effect upon the health of the little one. Many parents begin to feed the baby tea and coffee even before it is three months old: not because the little one needs anything more than nature’s food, but because the baby seems to enjoy taking the stimulating drink. At this time the child’s nervous system is developing very rapidly. In the first six months the head gains three inches in circumference, and the greater part of the brain growth takes place in the first seven years of life. Damage done to the cell structure of this system at this period can never be repaired in after life. The paregoric, laudanum, tea, coffee, and tobacco, one and all, create a demand for their continued use; for they damage the delicate organs; and when the stimulus of the drug is gone, one is conscious of a lack of energy, and seeks the enemy again, to silence the outcry made by abused nature. Truly, when pledging against narcotics, one should study to know the many forms under which these drugs abound at the present time. The child is the father of the man, and should be kept from being injured and debased by these drugs, by having the care of an intelligent mother who knows what will hurt him, and will firmly withhold the dangerous article.