n
opium. Sixty remedies are sold for the relief of pain, and no other
purpose. 120 are for nervous troubles, and of this number, sixty-five
have entering into their composition coca leaves, or kola nut, or both,
or are represented by their respective active principles, cocaine or
caffeine. 129 are offered for headaches, and kindred ailments, and
usually with a guarantee to give immediate relief. In these are
generally compounded phenacetine, caffeine, antipyrine, acetanilid, or
morphine, diluted with soda, or sugar of milk. Dysentery, diarrhoea,
cholera morbus, cramp in bowels, etc., have 185 quick reliefs or
"cures" to their credit, nearly all of which contain opium, many of them
in addition, alcohol, ginger, capsicum or myrrh in various combinations,
and there are numerous cases on record where children and adults have
been narcotized by their excessive use. Some manufacturers print on the
labels covering these goods, words of caution limiting the amount to be
taken. Forty-eight compounds for asthma contain caffeine and morphine.
Sufferers from toothache have their choice from thirty-eight remedies,
and thirty-six soothing, or teething, syrups are provided for infants.

Many people have ignorantly and innocently formed an alcohol, morphine,
or cocaine habit through the use of patent medicines. Many deaths have
occurred from headache powders of which acetanilid is the chief
ingredient. Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, chief of the Bureau of Chemistry, says
of these headache powders:--

"A woman has a headache and she uses one of these remedies. It
relieves the pain. When she has another attack she uses it again
and again with the same result. After a while she finds the
usual amount of the remedy does not cure the pain. She uses two
portions, and so the habit is formed until absolute danger is
confronted. For one thing must not be forgotten: these remedies
are powerful, for if they were not they would be of no effect.
They are in certain doses deadly; they depress the nervous
system; they disturb the digestion; they interfere with natural
sleep; they require to be used in increasingly larger quantities
as the system becomes accustomed to their use; they are almost
without exception excreted by the kidneys, thus adding an
additional burden to organs already badly overworked. They
produce a habit of gaining relief which becomes an obsession and
incapable of being resisted