Part 8

18-year-old Philadelphia girl got a box of Orangeine powders at a drug store, having been told that they would cure headache. There was nothing on the label or in the printed matter inclosed with the preparation warning her of the dangerous character of the nostrum. Following the printed advice, she took two powders. In three hours she was dead. Coroner Dugan's verdict follows: "Mary A. Bispels came to her death from kidney and heart disease, aggravated by poisoning by acetanilid taken in Orangeine headache powders." Prescribing Without Authority. Yet this poison is being recommended every day by people who know nothing of it and nothing of the susceptibility of the friends to whom they advocate it. For example, here is a testimonial from the Orangeine booklet: "Miss A. A. Phillips, 60 Powers street, Brooklyn, writes: 'I always keep Orangeine in my desk at school, and through its frequent applications to the sick I am called both "doctor and magician."'" If the school herein referred to is a public school, the matter is one for the Board of Education; if a private school, for the Health Department or the county medical society. That a school teacher should be allowed to continue giving, however well meaning her foolhardiness may be, a harmful and possibly fatal dose to the children intrusted to her care seems rather a significant commentary on the quality of watchfulness in certain institutions. Obscurity as to the real nature of the drug, fostered by careful deception, is the safeguard of the acetanilid vender. Were its perilous quality known, the headache powder would hardly be so widely used. And were the even more important fact that the use of these powders becomes a habit, akin to the opium or cocain habits, understood by the public, the repeated sales which are the basis of Orangeine's prosperity would undoubtedly be greatly cut down. Orangeine fulfills the prime requisite of a patent medicine in being a good "repeater." Did it not foster its own demand in the form of a persistent craving, it would hardly be profitable. Its advertising invites to the formation of an addiction to the drug. "Get the habit," it might logically advertise, in imitation of a certain prominent exploitation along legitimate lines. Not only is its value as a cure for nervousness and headaches insisted on, but its prospective dupes are advised to take this powerful drug as a _bracer_. "When, as often, you reach home tired in body and mind... take an Orangeine powder, lie down for thirty minutes' nap--if possible--anyway, relax, then take another." "To induce sleep, take an Orangeine powder immediately before retiring. When wakeful, an Orangeine powder will have a normalizing, quieting effect." It is also recommended as a good thing to begin the day's work on in the morning--that is, take Orangeine night, morning and between meals! These powders pretend to cure asthma, biliousness, headaches, colds, catarrh and grip (dose: powder every four hours during the day for a week!--a pretty fair start on the Orangeine habit), diarrhea, hay fever, insomnia, influenza, neuralgia, seasickness and sciatica. Of course, they do not cure any of these; they do practically nothing but give temporary relief by depressing the heart. With the return to normal conditions of blood circulation comes a recurrence of the nervousness, {034}headache, or what not, and the incentive to more of the drug, until it becomes a necessity. In my own acquaintance I know half a dozen persons who have come to depend on one or another of these headache preparations to keep them going. One young woman whom I have in mind told me quite innocently that she had been taking five or six Orangeine powders a day for several months, having changed from Koehler's powders when some one told her that the latter were dangerous! Because of her growing paleness her husband had called in their physician, but neither of them had mentioned the little matter of the nostrum, having accepted with a childlike faith the asseverations of its beneficent qualities. Yet they were of an order of intelligence that would scoff at the idea of drinking Swamp-Root. [IMAGE ==>] {034} An Acetanilid Death Record. This list of fatalities is made up from statements published in the newspapers. In every case the person who died had taken to relieve a headache or as a bracer a patent medicine containing acetanilid, without a doctor's prescription. This list does not include the case of a dog in Altoona, Pa., which died immediately on eating some sample headache powders. The dog did not know any better. Mrs. Minnie Bishop, Louisville, Ky.; Oct. 16, 1903. Mrs. Mary Cusick and Mrs. Julia Ward, of 172 Perry Street, New York City; Nov. 27, 1903. Fred. P. Stock, Scranton, Pa.; Dec. 7, 1903. C. Frank Henderson, Toledo, 0.; Dec. 13, 1903. Jacob E. Staley, St. Paul, Mich.; Feb. 18, 1904. Charles M. Scott, New Albany, Ind.; March 15, 1904. Oscar McKinley, Pittsburg, Pa.; April 13, 1904. Otis Staines, student at Wabash College; April 13, 1904. Mrs. Florence Rumsey, Clinton, la.; April 23, 1904. Jenny McGee, Philadelphia, Pa.; May 26, 1904. Mrs. William Mabee, Leoni, Midi.; Sept. 9, 1904. Mrs. Jacob Friedman, of South Bend, Ind.; Oct. 19, 1904. Miss Libbie North, Rockdale, N. Y.; Oct. 26, 1904. Margaret Hanahan, Dayton, O.; Oct. 29, 1904. Samuel Williamson, New York City; Nov. 21, 1904. George Kublisch, St. Louis, Mo.; Nov. 24, 1904. Robert Breck, St. Louis, Mo.;'Nov. 27, 1904. Mrs. Harry Haven, Oriskany Falls, N. Y.; Jan. 17, 1905. Mrs. Jennie Whyler, Akron, 0.; April 3, 1905. Mrs. Augusta Strothmann, St. Louis, Mo.; June 20, 1905. Mrs. Mary A. Bispels, Philadelphia, Pa.; July 2, 1905. Mrs. Thos. Patterson, Huntington, W. Va.; Aug. 15, 1905. Some of these victims died from an alleged overdose; others from the prescribed dose. In almost every instance the local papers suppressed the name of the fatal remedy, {035}Peruna. That particular victim had the beginning of the typical blue skin pictured in the street-car advertisements of Orangeine (the advertisements are a little mixed, as they put the blue hue on the "before taking," whereas it should go on the "after taking"). And, by the way, I can conscientiously recommend Orangeine, Koehler's powders, Royal Pain powders and others of that class to women who wish for a complexion of a dead, pasty white, verging to a puffy blueness under the eyes and about the lips. Patient use of these drugs will even produce an interesting and picturesque, if not intrinsically beautiful, purplish-gray hue of the face and neck. [IMAGE ==>] {035} Drugs That Deprave. Another acquaintance writes me that he is unable to dissuade his wife from the constant use of both Orangeine and Bromo-Seltzer, although her {036}health is breaking down. Often it is difficult for a physician to diagnose these cases because the symptoms are those of certain diseases in which the blood deteriorates, and, moreover, the victim, as in opium and cocain slavery, will positively deny having used the drug. A case of acetanilid addiction (in "cephalgin," an ethical proprietary) is thus reported: "When the drug was withheld the patient soon began to exhibit all the traits peculiar to the confirmed morphine-maniac--moral depravity and the like. She employed every possible means to obtain the drug, attempting even to bribe the nurse, and, this failing, even members of the family." Another report of a similar case (and there are plenty of them to select from) reads: "Stomach increasingly irritable; skin a grayish or light purplish hue; palpitation and slight enlargement of the heart; great prostration, with pains in the region of the heart; blood discolored to a chocolate hue. The patient denied that she had been using acetanilid, but it was discovered that for a year she had been obtaining it in the form of a proprietary remedy and had contracted a regular 'habit.' On the discontinuance of the drug the symptoms disappeared. She was discharged from the hospital as cured, but soon returned to the use of the drug and applied for readmission, displaying the former symptoms." [IMAGE ==>] {036} NEW YORK STATE'S NEW POISON LABEL. On a cocain-laden medicine. Where I have found a renegade physician making his millions out of Peruna, or a professional promoter trading on the charlatanry of Liquozone, it has seemed superfluous to comment on the personality of the men. They are what their business connotes. With Orangeine the case is somewhat different. Its proprietors are men of standing in other and reputable spheres of activity. Charles L. Bartlett, its president, is a graduate of Yale University and a man of some prominence in its alumni affairs. Orangeine is a side issue with him. Professionally he is the western representative of Ivory Soap, one of the heaviest of legitimate advertisers, and he doubtless learned from this the value of skillful exploitation. Next to Mr. Bartlett, the largest owner of stock (unless he has recently sold out) is William Gillette, the actor, whose enthusiastic indorsement of the powders is known in a personal sense to the profession which he follows, and in print to hundreds of thousands of theater-goers who have read it in their programs. Whatever these gentlemen may think of their product (and I understand that, incredible as it may seem, both of them are constant users of it and genuine believers in it), the methods by which it is sold and the essential and mendacious concealment of its real nature illustrate the {037}level to which otherwise upright and decent men are brought by a business which can not profitably include either uprightness or decency in its methods. Orangeine is less dangerous, except in extent of use, than many other acetanilid mixtures which are much the same thing under a different name. A friend of mine with a weak heart took the printed dose of Laxative Bromo Quinin and lay at the point of death for a week. There is no word of warning on the label. In many places samples of headache powders are distributed on the doorsteps. The St. Louis Chronicle records a result: "Huntington, W. Va., Aug. 15, 1905.--While Mrs. Thomas Patterson was preparing supper last evening she was stricken with a violent headache and took a headache powder that had been thrown in at her door the day before. Immediately she was seized with spasms and in an hour she was dead." That even the lower order of animals is not safe is shown by a canine tragedy in Altoona, Pa., where a prize collie dog incautiously devoured three sample tablets and died in an hour. Yet the distributing agents of these mixtures do not hesitate to lie about them. Rochester, N. Y., has an excellent ordinance forbidding the distribution of sample medicines, except by permission of the health officer. An agent for Miniature Headache Powders called on Dr. Goler with a request for leave to distribute 25,000 samples. "What's your formula?" asked the official. "Salicylate of soda and sugar of milk," replied the traveling man. "And you pretend to cure headaches with that?" said the doctor. "I'll look into it." Analysis showed that the powders were an acetanilid mixture. The sample man didn't wait for the result. He hasn't been back to Rochester since, although Dr. Goler is hopefully awaiting him. Bromo-Seltzer is commonly sold in drug stores, both by the bottle and at soda fountains. The full dose is "a heaping teaspoonful." A heaping teaspoonful of Bromo-Seltzer means about ten grains of acetanilid. The United States Pharmacopeia dose is four grains; five grains have been known to produce fatal results. The prescribed dose of Bromo-Seltzer is