week another bottle was bought at first, until now a bottle is bought every third day. Why? Because the baby has become habituated to the drug. I am not well enough acquainted with the family to be able to say that the weaned children show any present abnormality of health due to the opium contained in the drug, but the after-effects of opium have been thus described. . . . Another instance, quite as startling, was that of a mother who gave large quantities of soothing syrup to two of her children in infancy; then, becoming convinced of its danger, abandoned its use. These children in middle life became neurotics, spirit and drug-takers. Three children born later and not given any drugs in early life grew up strong and healthy.
"I fear the children of the woman in question will all suffer for their mother's ignorance, or worse, in later life, and have tried to do my duty by sending word to the mother of the harmful nature of the stuff, but without effect.
"P. S. - How many neurotics, fiends and criminals may not 'Mrs Winslow' be sponsor for?"
This query is respectfully referred to the Anglo-American Drug Company, of New York, which makes its handsome profit from this slave trade.
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 int he 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 cocainn 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 trade is briskest.
Birney'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 habitues 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 go 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
