CHAPTER XIX.

CURES FOR INEBRIETY.

For a good many years past cures for inebriety have been freely advertised in various ways, some of them commonplace and others showing a good deal of ingenuity. Some are advertised and sold in the same way as ordinary secret remedies, that is to say, the purchaser sends so much money and receives a box or bottle with directions for administering the contents. In other instances the inebriate is required to submit himself to inspection, and in certain cases must enter a home maintained by the proprietor or his agents. Between these two extremes there are intermediate plans, the methods followed shading off on the one hand into those of the ordinary nostrum seller, and on the other into the more elaborate system of the “treatments” with which transatlantic enterprise has made us familiar. The last of the remedies described by name below approximates very closely to this class.

COZA POWDER.

This powder is supplied by the Coza Institute, 76, Wardour Street, London, W., formerly 62, Chancery Lane, London, W.C. The price charged for a box, containing 30 powders was 10s.

The preparation was advertised with an offer of a free sample. An application for a sample brought a single powder together with a 10s. box to be paid for or returned, a book of 130 pages (which is referred to below), and a letter, from which the following is an extract:

Coza Powder has the marvellous effect of producing a repugnance to intoxicating drink of any kind, and may be administered in coffee, tea, milk, water, beer, whisky, brandy, or solid food without the partaker’s knowledge.

Coza Powder does its work so silently and surely that any person interested in the intemperate can administer it to him or her without his or her knowledge and without him or her learning what has effected the reformation.

Coza Powder has reconciled thousands of families, saved from shame and dishonour thousands of men and transformed them into sturdy citizens and capable business men. It has led many a young man along the direct road to good fortune, and has prolonged by several years the lives of many individuals.

We particularly wish to draw your attention to the fact that we guarantee Coza Powder to be absolutely harmless.

The book which was sent, entitled _No more Drunkenness_, opens with the statements that—

Coza Powder is one of the greatest discoveries of the day. There is nothing in the whole world to compare with it. It is the only powder to cure the craving for drink and drug habits.

The first few pages are devoted to a disquisition on drunkenness; then follow further claims for Coza Powder, such as—

Coza is the name of a marvellous powder which possesses the quality of occasioning in him who takes it a dislike for alcoholic liquors and all intoxicating drinks. The drinker finds alcohol so detestable that even on the most tempting occasions it will be impossible for him to take a single drop.

A large part of the book is given up to what are called testimonials, with portraits stated to represent the writers; the large majority of these are dated from Continental countries. Those to which English names and addresses are appended are for the most part expressions of hopefulness, or records of slight variations in drinking which are believed to be due to the powders; for instance:

My friend has been taking “Coza” this last two days, and he has had no desire for drink.

Enclosed you will find P.O. for which send me another box. I think the powders are doing my friend good. Send at once.

The last pages of the book are devoted to advertisements of Canexia Hair Elixir, Canexia-Brilliantine, and Canexia-Shampoo Powder, supplied from the Canexia Chemical Works, 61, Chancery Lane; and Anticelta Tablets for Obesity, and Brixa Tablets for Thin People, supplied from 62, Chancery Lane.

A visit to the address showed that the Canexia Chemical Works, the Coza Institute, and the offices of Anticelta and Brixa Tablets were all at that time accommodated in three rooms on the second floor at 61 and 62, Chancery Lane, the double number representing the one entrance of a large block of buildings containing hundreds of different offices. A photograph of the entire block, inscribed “Coza Institute,” is given in the book just referred to. The address has since been changed to that given above.

The powders had an average weight of 1½ grains, the weights of single ones varying from ⅓ grain to 3 grains. Analysis showed them to contain 90·5 per cent. of sodium bicarbonate, the remainder being a vegetable powder; microscopic examination of this powder showed that it agreed in all its characters with a mixture of equal parts of cummin fruit and cinnamon. No alkaloid was present, and no other ingredient of any kind could be detected. The formula is thus:

Sodium bicarbonate 90 parts. Powdered cinnamon 5 ” Powdered cummin 5 ”

Cummin fruit (seeds) have a bitter aromatic taste and a peculiar strong heavy odour. Owing to its disagreeable taste and odour cummin is seldom used in medicine, any medicinal properties it possesses being the same as those of other aromatic and less nauseous umbelliferous fruits.

The estimated cost of the ingredients for 30 powders was one-thirtieth of a penny.

DIPSOCURE.

This nostrum is prepared by a “Chemical Co.,” giving an address in Birmingham. The price charged for a box, containing 50 powders, 25 being white and 25 tinted reddish-buff, was 9s.

This article, like the preceding, is advertised with an offer of a free sample. Application for a sample brought also a stream of letters at short intervals, with abundant printed matter. A few extracts from the letters are here given:

Eminent medical men have over and over again declared that if a cure for drunkenness could be discovered both TASTELESS AND ODOURLESS, and placed in the hands of a devoted woman to administer SECRETLY, the greatest difficulty in effecting cures would have been overcome. “Dipsocure” IS TASTELESS and ODOURLESS, and CAN BE administered SECRETLY; so that it has been our privilege and good fortune to have solved the problem. Whilst counteracting and freeing the alcoholic-laden system of the poison, it is soothing to the nerves and restores the health, and is harmless to the most delicate person.

... when a cure has been effected we ask you kindly to acquaint us of the fact, and perhaps you will then consider our agency proposal, showing how a good income can be made by introducing the cure to others. To show you the ease with which it can be sold, if you remit us 10s. three packages will be sent, two of which you can readily dispose of to other sufferers at 9s. each, thus making 8s. profit and obtaining one packet quite free.

The directions for use were:

Give one powder three times a day, before meals, dissolved in half a tea-cup of Hot Coffee, Tea, Whisky, Milk, Gin, &c.

Use either the brown or white powder, as the colour of the liquid may require.

The powders had an average weight of 4·2 grains, single powders varying from 2·9 to 6·0 grains. The composition of both kinds was found to be the same except for the trace of colouring matter contained in the tinted powder. Analysis showed the composition to be—

Acetanilide 6 parts. Potassium bromide 35 ” Sugar of milk 59 ”

The estimated cost of the ingredients for 50 powders was one-third of a penny.

ANTIDIPSO.

This is supplied by another “Chemical Company,” giving an address in London. The price of a box, containing 48 powders, 24 being white, and 24 tinted pinkish-buff, was 10s.

The statements made about this article, in circulars and letters, were very similar to those made about the preceding one. A few extracts will suffice:

You will not forget that to insure an absolute complete and permanent cure for the craving, two boxes are invariably required. We have had data of cures effected with one box, but to make absolutely sure you will do well to immediately send us remittance, to the same value as the last, and get the second box of the specific. Antidipso may be administered with or without the knowledge of the patient.... We enclose you a booklet showing our agency terms. Kindly give it your attention, as we are confident you will be so surprised and satisfied at the cure which will be effected that you will either yourself want to take up agency with us, or get some one in your district to do so.

The directions were:

Give one powder, dissolved in half a tea-cup of hot coffee, whisky, milk, gin, &c. (using either Brown or White Powder as colour of liquid may require) 3 times a day before meals.

The powders had an average weight of 5·3 grains, single powders ranging from 3·7 to 9·9 grains. The white and tinted powders were made of the same constituents, with a trace of colouring matter added in the latter case, but in different proportions. Analysis showed the composition to be:

WHITE POWDERS.

Potassium bromide 24·5 parts. Sugar of milk 75·5 ”

COLOURED POWDERS.

Potassium bromide 35 parts. Sugar of milk 65 ”

The estimated cost of the ingredients for 48 powders was one-third of a penny.

THE TEETOLIA TREATMENT.

The following is an extract from an advertisement of a “Teetolia Treatment Association,” giving an address in London:

After years of Drink and Drug taking—

Cured in 4 days.

... The Teetolia treatment acts so rapidly and so efficiently that within four days from the commencement of administration the insistent craving for drink is absolutely destroyed—so much so, that even the thought of alcohol becomes nauseating.... Thousands have been cured by this treatment, and we guarantee to cure you. If you write to-day, you will receive by return of post a private consultation sheet, together with a valuable book on this subject, post free in plain envelope, and you will be a free man within a week.

On application being made for further particulars, a booklet of twenty pages, entitled _The Teetolia Treatment for Alcoholic Excess, Drug Habits, and Resultant Nervous Diseases_, was sent, together with a letter and a form to be filled up with particulars of the case to be treated. The following are extracts from the booklet:

The discovery of the Teetolia method and treatment for the permanent eradication of the crave for drink and drugs marks an era in medical science. It is the outcome of a life’s study of the subject by one of our best known West-End physicians.

You can, whilst undergoing the treatment, pursue your ordinary methods of living. You continue to take your daily modicum of alcohol; but somehow about the third or fourth day of treatment, without having made any physical or mental effort, you feel that you no longer want a drink; it holds out no attractions to you; its magnetic influence has gone....

We are willing to supply you with sufficient medicine for eight days’ treatment free of all charge. This will enable you to determine whether the treatment is acting successfully, for at the end of the fourth day an obvious and perceptible effect should be experienced. We impose no condition; we rely on your candour, honesty, and gratitude that at the end of the eight days’ treatment, if you are convinced of the value of the Teetolia Treatment, you will forward to us the ordinary fee—£1 1_s._—for same, but if you have derived no benefit from the treatment at the end of the same period, then you are under no obligation whatever to pay us one single penny.

The letters were on headed paper, at the top of which was printed, “All communications strictly confidential,” and “Consultations with Physician by appointment.” The first letter concluded as follows:

Please therefore fill in and return without delay the special statement sheet and upon our receiving it the Physician will go carefully into the case and will prescribe special medicine, which will reach you with expert advice in the course of two or three days in a perfectly plain sealed package.

The “expert advice,” in a letter purporting to be from “The Medical Superintendent,” sent with the medicine, contained these passages:

I want, if possible, the patient to use his own endeavours to try and keep off alcohol during the first few days of treatment; if this cannot be done, then the treatment must be commenced when the patient is not drinking, in order to give the medicine a better hold on the system. The dislike for alcohol, which we claim, does not come on all at once.

The eight days’ treatment is enough to show you that it will do good, but not sufficient in this case to effect a permanent cure. I would advise the patient to continue for at least a month to six weeks.

This is somewhat widely at variance with the statements quoted above. “You continue to take your daily modicum of alcohol” and “you will be a free man within a week.”

The one guinea “treatment” consisted of 2⅙ fluid ounces of a liquid of the nature of a vegetable fluid extract.

The directions were:

Half a teaspoonful to be taken in a little water every four hours during the day at 10, 2, 6, and 10 o’c.

Analysis showed this to contain 29·3 per cent. by volume of alcohol and 2·3 per cent. of alkaloid, which consisted principally of quinine. The liquid agreed generally with a diluted liquid extract of cinchona; the amount of alkaloid was just under half what is contained in the official liquid extract of cinchona. Treatment with suitable solvents extracted a trace of a non-alkaloidal bitter substance resembling the bitter substances obtainable from quassia, chiretta, &c.; a preparation of chiretta appeared to be the more probable. No strychnine was present, and no evidence was obtained of any other ingredient.

SOME OTHER DRUG CURES FOR INEBRIETY.

A somewhat frequent constituent of preparations for the treatment of inebriety is atropine, while other preparations contain one or more of the alkaloids belonging to the same group, usually known as the solanaceous alkaloids from the fact that they are all derived from plants of the nat. ord. _Solanaceae_. These alkaloids closely resemble each other in their chemical nature and in their pharmacological properties; the principal members of the group are:

Atropine, C₁₇H₂₃NO₃; obtained chiefly from _Atropa belladonna_ (deadly nightshade) and _Scopola carniolica_.

Hyoscyamine, C₁₇H₂₃NO₃, obtained chiefly from _Hyoscyamus niger_ (henbane) and _Scopola_ species.

Hyoscine, or scopolamine, C₁₇H₂₁NO₄, obtained chiefly from _Scopola_ species, _Hyoscyamus niger_, and _Datura alba_.

The two following were originally described as separate substances, but have more recently been shown to consist of mixtures:

Duboisine, obtained from _Duboisia myoporoides_, consists chiefly of hyoscyamine and hyoscine.

Daturine, from _Datura stramonium_ (thornapple) consists chiefly of hyoscyamine, with a variable proportion of atropine.

A certain preparation for inebriety is said to contain “stramonine”; as no alkaloid has been described and characterized under this name, it is probably only a variant of daturine, which, as has been said, consists of a natural mixture of hyoscyamine and atropine.

To the above may be added the artificial alkaloid homatropine (C₁₀H₂₁NO₃), which has not been found in a plant, but is prepared synthetically; in chemical constitution it is mandelyl-tropeine, atropine being tropyltropeine.

The differences in the action of the four principal solanaceous alkaloids are briefly as follows:

_Atropine_ has a stimulant action on the central nervous system especially on the motor area; it depresses and in large doses paralyses the nerve endings of secretory glands, plain muscle, and the heart.

_Hyoscyamine_ is intermediate in its action between atropine and hyoscine; causes less stimulation of the central nervous system than atropine, and is a weaker sedative and hypnotic than hyoscine. It has the same action peripherally as atropine but is twice as powerful.

_Hyoscine_ resembles atropine in its paralysing effect upon peripheral nerve endings, the action being quicker, more powerful, and less lasting. It does not possess the stimulating effect of atropine upon the brain; depression of the motor area is marked from the first.

_Homatropine_ resembles atropine in its action but is less powerful.