Medicine of Ills

by

Lauren Roberts

Prescription and over-the-counter drugs are so regulated these days that we often forget how loose the industry was just a hundred years ago. Ingredients suspected and sometimes known to be poisonous and/or addictive were routine additions in medications. Alcohol was very common. So was morphine. Cocaine. And even heroin. Take the case of Carl Bunel’s Cough Balsam, which this bookmark promotes. Each fluid ounce, it notes, “contains heroin muriate 1/8 grain, chloroform 4 minims.”

No information can be found on “Carl Bunel’s” or “Carl Bunel’s Cough Balsam or even “Cough Balsam.” A search on the Wyttenbach Chemical Company turned up only a couple of address listings in professional companies and, interestingly, an advertising page in the Interstate Medical Journal, volume 10, issue 2 (1903), in which Wyttenbach promoted Pruni-Heroin for “various afflictions of the throat and lungs.”

A preparation which has proved very efficient in the treatment of diseases of the respirator organs, attended with marked irritations of the mucous membrane, difficulty in breathing, etc., is pruni-heroin. It controls coughs in a prompt and reliable manner, without disturbing the digestion or arresting the secretions. A prominent physician writes: “During my experience of the past thirty years, I know of no remedy that has given such universal satisfaction as pruni-heroin. I have tested it efficiency in several cases, and the results were more than pleasing. It is undoubtedly a most excellent preparation.” Physicians can secure samples by addressing the Wyttenbach Chemical Co., Evansville, Ind.

I then turned to a search of the primary ingredient, pruni-heroin, and found, in the Medical Herald, volume 25 (1908), another eyebrow-raising description:

Pruni-Heroin is a reliable, strictly ethical preparation, consisting of those remedies which have proved of greatest value in the treatment of cough: heroin, terpin hydrate, ammonia mur., wild cherry bark, white pine bark, blood root, spikenard, glycerine, etc., so combined that their efficiency is fortified and their objectionable features eliminated. The unique value of heroin in all affections of the respirator tract has been thoroughly established by the profession since its introduction a few years ago. Terpin hydrate acts as a stimulant, exerting influence on the pulmonary mucous membrane, increasing muscular power and aiding in the expulsion of sputa. The astringent properties of wild cherry bark and white pine bark are of a peculiar service in inflammations of the respiratory tract. They also exert a controlling influence upon the nightsweats of phthisis. The foregoing ingredients, with the addition of blood root, spikenard, glycerine, etc., make pruni-heroin of peculiar value as a cough-relieving agent, as near a specific in the diseases where it is indicated as it is possible for a medicine to become. Another great point in its favor is that it is exceptionally palatable, agrees with the most delicate stomach, and is acceptable to children or others who cannot take ordinary preparations.

While I could not find specific information on heroin muriate (at least none dated after 1910), I have just finished reading The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, which included among other poisons routinely used, chloroform. As “products of the new chemistry,” the various poisons including chloroform “stocked the shelves of doctors’ offices, businesses, homes, pharmacies, and grocery stores.” This particular drug became a favorite tool of thieves who would rob homes by knocking and forcing a chloroform-soaked rag over the face of whoever opened the door. But results could be more tragic. In 1911, a depressed father killed his three children with it, then left a suicide note, and walked into the Atlantic.

Chloroform came about when an Edinburgh physician, James Young Simpson, was looking for something to replace ether as the choice of pain reliever in surgery and childbirth. On the evening of November 4, 1847, he and his two lab assistants who had already experimented on themselves with acetone and benzene, poured out tumblers of chloroform and dipped their faces into the rising vapor. Within two minutes, they were unconscious, but came to about a half hour later, seemingly none the worse for wear. It seemed a miracle, but as was soon discovered no one knew what a safe dose was. However, it did kill, and around the turn of the twentieth century the British Medical Association labeled it the most dangerous anesthetic known, while the American Medical Association urged hospitals to stop using it. Unfortunately, because it was cheap and it did the job it took some time before chloroform disappeared from pharmacy shelves. So its appearance in Carl Bunel’s Cough Balsam remained.

The other primary ingredient in the cough syrup, heroin muriate (a water- and acid-soluble form suitable for medications), was at this time known but not well. Practitioner (volume 67, dated 1901), notes that heroin muriate is valuable for “hypodermic use . . . [though] not given in doses larger than 1 cg., since slightly larger doses in two instances caused general distress, nausea, and vertigo,” but warns that any dose should be “used and administered with care, as the toxic properties of the drug are not thoroughly well known.”

Unfortunately, they would become better known. This abstract from Acta Pharm Hung. (2001) gives a brief overview:

Heroin, in pharmacological studies, proved to be more effective than morphine or codeine. The Bayer Company started the production of heroin in 1898 on a commercial scale. The first clinical results were so promising that heroin was considered a wonder drug. Indeed, heroin was more effective than codeine in respiratory diseases. It has turned out, however, that repeated administration of heroin results in the development of tolerance and the patients become heroin-addicts soon. In the early 1910s morphine addicts “discovered” the euphorising properties of heroin and this effect was enhanced by intravenous administration. Heroin became a narcotic drug and its abuse began to spread quickly. Restrictions on its production, use and distribution were regulated by international treaties. The total ban on heroin production was also proposed. As a result of the strict regulations the production and consumption of heroin showed a significant decrease after 1931. At the same time the underworld recognized the shortage of heroin and started the illicit production and trafficking. The quantity of heroin seized by law enforcement agencies in the past decades rose gradually. As an indicator of the worldwide heroin market, the quantity of confiscated heroin underwent a tenfold increase since 1970.

All the dangers we now know of about both heroin muriate and chloroform were then unsuspected. So when this bookmark was passed out by Wyttenbach to its customers in Evansville, Indiana, with its promise that you can have “your money back if CARL BUNEL’S COUGH BALSAM does not give better satisfaction than any other remedy of its kind you ever tried” it seemed to promise a world of relief. How sad it is that what it gave was a world of poison.

As for the backside of the bookmark, I have no idea why “M W of A,” which apparently stands for Modern Woodmen of America, is there. Did he also sell insurance? If so, it’s an odd juxtaposition given that this fraternal organization, founded by Joseph Cullen Root on January 5, 1883, was designed to “protect families following the death of a breadwinner.” Root’s original organization was restricted to rural Midwestern white men between the ages of 18 and 45, though certain professions, because of the danger present in their professions, were not allowed to join. It has since expanded and is today the third-largest fraternal “benefit society” with more than 750,000 members. It sells life insurance, annuity, and investment products and also seeks to “improve the quality of life of its stakeholders—members, their families, and their communities through social, charitable, and volunteer activities.

So . . . poison on one side, life on the other. I wonder if Mr. Bunel (or the owner of Wyttenbach) ever saw the irony in that. I’d like to think he did not, that he really believed the cough balsam was medically sound. Of course, it didn’t hurt that should he be wrong he also offered “protection.”

Bookmark specifications: Carl Bunel’s Cough Balsam
Dimensions: 9" x 2 1/2"
Material: Paper
Manufacturer: Unknown
Date: Probably 1897-1910
Acquired: eBay

Almost since her childhood days of Mother Goose, Lauren has been giving her opinion on books to anyone who will listen. That “talent” eventually took her out of magazine writing and into book reviewing in 2000 for an online review site where she cut her teeth (as well as a few authors). Stints as book editor for her local newspaper and contributing editor to Booklist and Bookmarks magazines has reinforced her belief that she has interesting things to say about books. Lauren shares her home with several significant others including three cats, nearly 1,300 bookmarks and approximately the same number of books that, whether previously read or not, constitute her to-be-read stack. She is a member of the National Books Critics Circle (NBCC) as well as a longtime book design judge for Publishers Marketing Association’s Benjamin Franklin Awards. Contact Lauren.