Harmful Medications 1850-1900

Harmful Medications: 1850-1900

CJ411-01 – Drugs and Alcohol in the Criminal Justice System

Harmful Medications: 1850-1900

The latter half of the nineteenth century was a time of transition for drug use in the United States. Opium and opiate-derivatives were legally used both recreationally and medicinally because science and medicine were still primitive at best; physicians were hopelessly ignorant to the harm they were causing by prescribing drugs such as heroin and cocaine for minor illnesses such as toothaches and menstrual cramps. (Abadinsky, 2018) Morphine was the painkiller of choice for physicians during the American Civil War which lasted from 1861-1865. (history.com, 2017) Addiction to morphine became such a problem directly because of this era that it became known as the “soldier’s disease.” (narconon.org, 2013) As the nineteenth century progressed, and the United States began to recover from the scars of battle, many physicians turned to the medical innovations of foreign chemists and ceased to prescribe hard drugs.

Prior to the 1800s, opium had been used recreationally and medicinally for thousands of years for everything from relief of minor pain to a sedative for fussy children. When it made its debut in the United States, it was used for similar purposes in addition to being used as anesthesia for surgeries. Two armed conflicts which were called the Opium Wars occurred because of the production and distribution of opium. The first war was in the 1700s when Great Britain conquered a large region of India which was produced large amounts of product; they then smuggled it into China through the East India Company. As a result of this smuggling, many Chinese citizens became addicted to opium and their government sought to prohibit further importation. The Second Opium War was fought from 1856-1860 and an alliance was formed between the British and French military forces to defeat the Chinese government and make trading opium legal in China.

On America’s West Coast, the late 1870s brought Chinese immigrants in droves as cheap labor during the California Gold Rush. These immigrants introduced the harmful habit of smoking opium when they established opium dens for selling, purchasing, and consuming in communities called Chinatowns along the West Coast. It became so popular and so harmful to smoke opium that in 1875, the city of San Francisco had to pass legislation that limited its use. The ordinance made it a misdemeanor to maintain or frequent an opium den. Distrust of Chinese people and a perceived threat to job security for native citizens spread quickly which led to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. This Act prohibited Chinese immigration into the United States until 1892.

The 1860s produced so many Americans that were addicted to morphine in the southeastern United States that heroin was introduced to the medical community to combat morphine addiction by Bayer pharmaceutical in 1898. Researchers discovered that by boiling morphine for several hours, diacetylmorphine could be developed as a cure for bronchitis, tuberculosis and other cough-related diseases. (health24.com, 2015) This was later named heroin and, although effective, it was highly addictive. (narconon.org, 2014) The market was filled with what physicians referred to as a “miracle drug” and “universal cure-all” in the form of easily accessible tablets, water-soluble salts, and gels in addition to cough syrup that was laced with heroin. It wasn’t until 1899 that physicians noticed their patients developing tolerance to the drug, addiction, a surge in heroin-related admissions to hospitals, and overdoses that they began to second-guess its worth to medicine. Bayer pharmaceutical stopped producing heroin in 1913 and, in 1914, its use without prescription was banned in the U.S. (Palet, 2017) Alternative medications such as central suppressants, antihistamines, expectorants, and anesthetics were later developed and prescribed for individuals with coughs instead of heroin.

The development of the pain-relieving medication, Aspirin, began as early as 1829 in France by a chemist named Charles Henri Leroux. His research was continued and improved upon by an Italian named Raffaele Piria in 1838. The formula for Aspirin as we know it today was not discovered until 1853 when the Bayer Company purchased the patent for a pill form of the drug from the German chemist, Felix Hoffmann. (McFadden, 2018) It is interesting to note that Felix Hoffmann is the same chemist who formulated Heroin in 1898; it has been said that he produced both drugs very similarly because he and many of his peers mistakenly held the belief that neither were habit-forming or addictive.

Sir Humphrey Davy deserves recognition for his contributions toward the development of Nitrous oxide (which is also known as “laughing gas”) at the turn of the 19th Century. It was not he, however, that completed its development and revolutionized the dental community by providing a safe and effective sedative agent as an alternative to ether or chloroform. (history.com, 2010) That honor belongs to the American dentist, Horace Wells, who was the first to demonstrate its potential as an anesthetic in 1844. The American Dental Association did not begin using it until the 1870’s. It was a commonly used general anesthetic (although it is not meant for that purpose) until the 1960’s. (McFadden, 2018) This gas is unlike its predecessors which put patients to sleep in that it simply made the patient more comfortable during their procedure; the patient becomes groggy, yet they remain conscious and aware of their surroundings. This approach is superior and more successful than many others because patients can hear and respond to the dentist during the procedure. (mouthhealthy.org, 2016) Later, in the 1930s, it began to be used to ease the pain and discomfort associated with childbirth.

In 1883, the behavioral health field experienced change as well when a German psychiatrist named Emil Kraepelin conducted extensive research into differentiating between the diagnoses of Manic-Depressive Psychosis and Schizophrenia; he also distinguished depression from Schizophrenia in 1895. His research was important because during the first half of the 19th century, patients with Schizophrenia and many other psychiatric disorders were perceived to indicate Satan worship, demon possession, and witchcraft; to treat these patients, providers prescribed stimulants, insulin shock, frontal lobotomy, and various crude neurosurgical procedures which closely resembled torture. Modern treatment for Schizophrenia includes being prescribed an anti-psychotic medication specifically formulated for this unique psychiatric disorder. (mayoclinic.org, 2018)

Although not part of the late nineteenth century, it should be noted that the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 introduced reformation to both the medical community and the food industry. In response to the publication of Upton Sinclair’s book the Jungle, Congress wrote legislation which prevented “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated or misbranded or poisonous or deleterious foods, drugs or medicines, and liquors.” (history.house.gov, 1906) For the first time in the history of American medicine, physicians were given restrictions and were held accountable for their actions. Limitations were placed on what they could prescribe and had to justify prescribing certain medications as being “medically necessary.” The federal government had been using chemical analysis on agricultural products since 1848, but this Act opened Congress’ eyes to the need for drug industry reform; this led to the establishment of the Food and Drug Administration in 1930. (fda.gov, 2018)

American medicine has come a long way in the past 113 years since the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 was passed. While there is still so much scientists and doctors cannot explain about the human body, it is encouraging to read that we as a nation have an elected body who actively tries to prevent us from harm at the hand of pharmaceutical companies as doctors continue to learn more. It is unfortunate that citizens of this era were subjected to harmful medications which caused them additional pain in the form of addictions and withdrawals, yet regrettably I fear it had to happen for progress and innovation to occur.