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.