Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-02-21
DANGERS IN DRUGS.

DANGERS IN DRUGS.
 WARNING TO THOSE DISPOSED TO USE THEM CARELEssLY. Special CAre Needed in Giving Medicine to
 Children = Fatal Results Possible from Remedies Usually Harmless = Mothers, Take Notice.
 More men are killed by drugs than disease" is an expression one occasion
 ally hears. How much truth it con-
 tains is, of course, problematical. But,
 without doubt, no small proportion of the deaths occurring are directly or in-
 directly due to an unwise use of medi-
 cines. Children furnish the readiest victims to the direct destructive influ- ences of drugs.
 Here is an instance where drugs, abso-
 lutely harmless in anything like reason
 able doses, may yet be the cause of death:
 The patient is an infant, and it suffers
 from diarrhea. The mother doctors it
 herself. She goes to the nearest drug
 gist and asks for diarrhea mixture.
 He gives her one made up of catechu
 and chalk mixture, two of the simplest
 of agents. with which almost every
 mother is familiar. This she adminis-
 ters to her child in the proper doses.
 The diarrhea lessens, but the child's condition does not improve. It even grows rapidly worse. Fever is on, the
 bowels are swollen, and, what is more alarming, "head symptoms" have ap- peared.
 THE PHYSICIAN PowRRIEss.
 A physician is called, but he is power less, for the brain is affected. The little one fingers along for days and days per- haps, and finally dies from disease of the brain. Now, for the child's death the catechu and chalk mixture, harmless as they are, were yet responsible. The mixture lessened the diarrhea, but in so doing invited an inflammation of the bowels; the little one's brain, always ex- ceedingly sensitive and susceptible to in- jury, became songested as natural con- sequence, other and more serious changes followed, as in all such cases, and it
 finally died-a victim to dosing. Had not the bowels been damned up by the catechu and chalk mixture, but instead, had they been unloaded and then treated properly, neither the inflammation therein nor the brain trouble would have occurred. In much the way described are thousands upon thousands of chil- dren killed every year. And this terrible mortality will only lessen when people learn the dangers of trihing with drugs.
 l have been for several weeks discuss ing in The Sunday Herald the remedies In common use. Continuing to do so, come now to calomel, an agent which has been much abused As every one knows, it is preparation of mercury. 1t bears the name mild chloride" in contradistinction to corrosive sublimate. which is called the "corrQsive chloride" of mercury. Calomel is very nearly three times as strong as blue pill. In one respect 1t is fortunate that there is. on the part of the people, the strongest prejudice against this agent. It Is likely to deter them from ever using it on their own responsibility. So strong is the prejudice there is scarcely day passes in the life of the busy practitioner that some patient or other does not question him about his medicines and enjoin that there be no calomel in it. Without doubt there is good and sufficient reason for this distrust of the drug. In times past it was, unquestionably, not only used too often, but in much too large doses. Sali- vation was then the rule, and by some it was believed that calomel only had curative effect when carried to that point. But all that is changed now.
 PROPER AND IMPROPER USE.
 Physicians no longer hold that it has such great power over the liver, nor that it controls inflammatory attacks, as their fathers before them believed. When is given them now they never push it to salvation. That condition is very rare indeed at the present time, and never occurs when the drug is wisely given, unless the patient Is very suscepti- oie to 1t. Physicians occasionally en- counter people who have the peculiarity of constitution that makes salvation easy for them. With the compound pill almost every one is fa- niliar. It contains one grain of calomel and three pills are purging dose. They are usually given at bedtime, and, if l failing to act the next morning, 1t is 1 quite a common custom to give two 1 more of them. This treatment is prac- tically safe, and no one would expect l salvation to follow. And yet it has done 1 50, but very rarely indeed, however, be- cause of the peculiar susceptibility of ! he patient to the drug.
 The prejudice against calomel seems o have grown with general enlighten- nent. It does not exist with those "be- hind the times" In the "far western | country" it is still held in high esteem, md given in enormous doses-even more han half teaspoonful-fora almost every conceivable ailment. After taking one ;athartic dose of calomel alone, no one likely to court another such experience, lnless his confidence in 1t is absolute. for t causes intense pain. For that reason was In olden times given with jalap, 0 quicken its action. But after what las been said, and all that can be said bout calomel, it is not an agent which an be dispensed with. Given in proper