Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-09-29

opium and the like the drug fend will still be with
The paregorc victim obtains throughout the land.
That mixture contains small quantity of OPIUM and
must be taken in large doses to produce any effect
Women used to into my store three or four times
dav for paregoriC, of them spending dollar
every twentyfour hours for this drug Another woman
used get every day pint bottle of Jamaica ginger
which contains about seventy-fve per cent alcohol,
mix it with sugar and water, and take 1t that way.
Casava was also commonly used by the drug end, and
so were alcoholic tincures, such gentian clnchoa,
and cardamon, which there net profit of hun
dred per cent.
These drugs were sold freely until the law prohibiting
the sale of any preparation containing opium or NOR
phine was enacted And then the ends put to all
of devices to wheedle the drug out OF the parn
cist In fact so great was the desperation of those s
ferng from the habit at that time that was frequently
offered as much twenty dollars for morphine tablets
that would ordinarily have sold for two dollars and fifty
cents Through the action of the Association of Retail
Druggists this law repealed because was so broad
as many perfectly harmless so-caled household
remedies.
The lines of the law have been drawn closer and closer
round the small dealer in drugs. The enormously profit
able business in cocaine and opium has been shut OFT
The law against counter prescribing and the competition
of the big department stores, on the other hand have
forced him to resort to Substitution This practice
time the great curse OF the business but like
its predecessors it is being eliminated 1t was due very
largely to the high price of what used to be- and
cases still the patented staple While the patents or
such staples effect the articles cost the retailer
dollar: whereas, when the patents EXPIRED the same
cost him ten cents. For instance, phenacetn' which
first dollar ounce, now sells tor twenty cents
This will give idea of the profits the manufacturer
made. In such the temptation to substitute VS.
very great. Many chemists used in the place OF plle1-
cetin drug known as acetanilide similar coaltar
product costing about seventy-flve cents pound 1t
was claimed that this was just effective plcna
cetin; so, while the druggist committed fraud, the
patient really cheated For asperin which cost
thirtyve cents ounce. the druggists largely used
acetysalcylae which they procured at about seventy
five cents pound, which almost good asperin
itself
Even while the patents protecting many of the staples
have expired the still left in the form of the sub
stitution habit But in of time there will be
pecuniarv reason for this habit and it will disappear
During the agitation against substitution and other
u practices of the retail druggists, doctors used to
tell repeatedly that they would be only too glad to
influence trade for any whom they could depend
This was nv cue discarded all my former methods,
and turned new leaf. But somehow the store had
got an unpleasant reputation which found to be too
great burden to carry in addition to my other load up
the honest yet rocky road that | had determined to
travel in the future.