Recent legislation on the part of the New York State Board of Pharmacy will tend to decrease the profit, as it requires that a poison label be put on each bottle of the product, as has long been the law in England.
An Omaha physician reports a case of poisoning from a compound bearing the touching name of "Kopp's Baby Friend," which has a considerable sale in the middle west and in central New York. It is made of sweetened water and morphin, about one-third grain of morphin to the ounce.
"The child (after taking four drops) went into a stupor at once, the pupils were pin-pointed, skin cool and clammy, heart and respiration slow. I treated the case as one of opium poisoning, but it took twelve hours before my little patient was out of danger."
As if to put a point of satirical grimness on the matter, the responsible proprietor of this particular business of drugging helpless babies is a woman, Mrs. J. A. Kopp, of York, Pa.
Making cocain fiends is another profitable enterprise. Catarrh powders are the medium. A decent druggist will not sell cocain as such, steadily, to any customer, except on prescription, but most druggists find salve for their consciences in the fact that the subtle and terrible drug is in the form of somebody's sure cure. There is need to say nothing of the effects of cocain other than that it is destructive to mind and body alike, and appalling in its breaking down of all moral restraint. Yet in New York City it is distributed in "samples" at ferries and railway stations. You may see the empty boxes and the instructive labels littering the gutters of Broadway any Saturday night, when the drug-store trade is briskest.
Simey's Catarrhal Powder, Dr. Cole's Catarrh Cure, Dr. Gray's Catarrh Powder and Crown Catarrh Powder are the ones most in demand. All of them are cocain; the other ingredients are unimportant—perhaps even superfluous.
Whether or not the bottles are labeled with the amount of cocain makes little difference. The habitués know. In one respect, however, the labels help them by giving information as to which nostrum is the most heavily drugged.
"People come in here," a New York City druggist tells me, "ask what catarrh powders we've got, read the labels and pick out the one that's got the most cocain. When I see a customer comparing labels I know she's a fiend."
Naturally these owners and exploiters of these mixtures claim that the small amount of cocain contained is harmless. For instance, the "Crown Cure," admitting 2% per cent., says:
"Of course, this is a very small and harmless amount. Cocain is now considered to be the most valuable addition to modern medicine... it is the most perfect relief known."