Asylum reports – Scottish Royal Asylums

Perth

Dr. Urquhart refers to the dangers that are accompanying the fashionable drugs which are now so accessible to the public. “The abuse of such substances as antipyrin, which seems to have taken its place in the domestic medicine chest, to the detriment of the race, is almost as formidable as the indiscriminate and continuous unauthorised dosing with sulphonal and cocaine. Valuable as these remedies are when appropriately prescribed, each entails its own special dangers. As soon as an anodyne or a soporific comes into general use, the results are recorded in the statistics of our medical institutions. We have lately reported a death consequent on a relatively small dose of sulphonal, and apparently due to its disorganising effect on the system. This drug was placed before the public as an absolutely safe hypnotic not many years ago, and it is now used with a freedom which is perfectly appalling; yet it has not been ascertained in what cases sulphonal is eminently dangerous, or where an idiosyncrasy exists forbidding its administration. We have also had under treatment a patient who fell a victim to that insidious drug cocaine. Consequent on the relief experienced, he was enabled for a time to carry on an extensive business; but, while thus deadening the pain of persistent neuralgia, he was only treating a prominent symptom, without combating the underlying causes of his malady.”