“Habit?” cried Mrs. Clyde. “Do you mean I’m in danger of not being able to get along without the tablets?”
“If you take them steadily you certainly are. If you take them occasionally, you’re only in danger of dropping dead one of these days.”
Mr. Clyde’s chin abruptly assumed a prominence which he seldom permitted it. “Well, that settles that,” he observed; and it was entirely unnecessary for any one present to ask any amplification of the remark. Mrs. Clyde looked at her mother for sympathy—and didn’t get any.
“Whenever I see a woman come into the shop,” continued the druggist, “with a whitey-blue complexion and little gray’ flabby wrinkles under her eyes, I know without asking what she wants. She’s a headache-powder fiend.”
“That queer look they have is from deterioration of the blood,” said Dr. Strong. “The acetanilid or acetphenetidin or whatever the coal-tar derivative may be, seems to kill the red corpuscles. In extreme cases of this I’ve seen blood the color of muddy water.”
“It certainly makes a fright of a woman. ‘Orangeine’ gets a lot of ‘em. You’ ve seen its advertisements in the street-cars. The owner of Orangeine, a Chicago man, got the habit himself: used fairly to live on the stuff, until pop! went his heart. He’s a living, or, rather a dead illustration of what his own dope will do.”
“But what are you to do for a splitting headache?” queried Mrs. Clyde, turning to Dr. Strong.
“I don’t know, unless I know what causes it,” said Dr. Strong. “Headache isn’t a disease. It’s a symptom, a danger signal. It’s the body’s way of crying for help. Drugs don’t cure a headache. They simply interrupt it.”
“What with the headache-powders breeding the drug habit, and the consumption cures and cough medicines making dope fiends, and the malt whiskey cures and Perunas furnishing quiet joy to the temperance trade, I sometimes wonder what we’re coming to,” remarked Mr. Gormley.
Mr. Clyde rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “But poor people who can’t afford a doctor have no recourse but to patent medicines,” said he.