4-page_spread

HEROIN® and ASPIRIN®
The Connection! & The Collection! - Part I
Dreser (1860-1924) a chemist, worked for
Friedrich Bayer & Company, a dye factory when anything from the East was linked to would be developed. He had also negotiated seafaring and exploring re-introduced the laboratory Heinrich Dreser was responsible drug in the late 15th and early 16th centuries.
for the launch of two drugs that have shaped Portuguese sailors are thought to have been the way we live: aspirin, the world’s most the first to smoke opium, around 1500. As successful legal drug; and heroin, the most
I. History of Opium, Morphine, and
successful illegal drug.
Heroin®
instantaneous effect, contrasted with eating The early scientist, Paracelsus [Figure
5] first compounded laudanum, an
by Bayer and was registered as a trademark and pods, dating from the Neolithic age – the “New Stone Age,” a period running poppy was cultivated in lower Mesopotamia it Hul Gil, the “joy plant.” The Sumerians [Figure 1]. The drug was
cultivation and passed it to the Assyrians, named the pain reliever after the medicine’s active ingredient – “a” from acetyl, “spir”
their capital city of Thebes. From Thebes, from the spires plants (which yields salicin) and “in,” a common suffix for medications.
that period, opium’s effects were considered some prevalence in the early 1600s in Persia Heinrich Dreser
Heinrich Dreser [Figure 2]
Hippocrates [Figure
3], dismissed the idea
around the world during this period. Opium [Figure 6] were
a professor at Bonn University in 1893.
Company (originally a dye producing firm), Alexander the Great [Figure 4] introduced
the efficacy and safety of new drugs.
in testing. The credit for originating new United States during the first half of the 19th century by means of these treatments.
containing opium as sedatives for children using opium for recreational purposes seem to have been primarily English literary and creative personalities, such as Thomas de Figure 12
Quincey, Byron, Shelley, Barrett-Browning, and England began in 1839 as a result of a Chinese ban on opium traffic, and an order reliability, long-lasting effects, and safety for all foreign traders to surrender their were extolled. In fact, despite its potential for addiction, morphine is still the premier drug used for extreme pain in hospitals and as part of their bounty – it was returned to China 156 years later in 1997. The Second Figure 10
practice of smoking the drug in [collectible] crowded industry, with several well-known pipes [Figures 7, 8, 9, and 10]. The
Cabot and John Cushing, of Boston, worked opium in China in order to create a trade balance for all of the tea from China they wealth. John Jacob Astor of New York City instantaneous and three times more potent ban, in 1729, of opium for anything other but later confined his opium selling to the the second half of the eighteenth century, the course of being treated for their war- the opium trade out of Calcutta to China.
the early 19th century. By 1830, British use opium per year by 1767, and by 1858, that opium. By the end of the century, the British imported from Turkey and India that year.
was actually cheaper than beer or wine.
1799, all opium trade was banned in China, “cures”) of all descriptions, and opium preparations such as Dover’s powder, were nearly half of all of the opium coming out 1742) [Figure 13],
of Smyrna, Turkey for export to Europe and Figure 14
In 1803, Friedrich Sertuerner [Figure
11] of Germany synthesized morphine
Figure 13
began manufacturing over the counter drug kits [Figure 14]. These
Figure 11
Figure 15
zoologist), [Figure 12] had first classified
heroin) and/or cocaine packaged neatly in grew steadily in England, Europe, and the attractive engraved cases [Figures 15 and
rapidly at the end of the 19th and beginningof the 20th centuries. Various medicaljournals of the time wrote of heroin as amorphine step-down cure. Otherphysicians argued, on the other hand, that Figure 17
their patients suffered from heroinwithdrawal symptoms as severe as Figure 16
English researcher, C. R. Wright. The drug went unstudied and unused until 1895 when drugs and enacted the Dangerous Drug Act.
By the time this law was passed, however, it was already too late. A market for heroin Figure 18
Figure 19
without the common morphine side effects.
medication for coughs, chest pains, and the discomfort of tuberculosis. This effect was of death at that time – prior to the discovery during this period was due in large part to of antibiotics. Heroin was touted to doctors the drug (mostly in collectible glass bottles, [Figures 17, 18, and 19]), being brought
Figure 20
Figure 21
codeine. It was thought to be nonaddictive, and even thought to be a cure for morphine who came here to work on the railroads.
ment’s Narcotics Division (the first federal famous names of the period like “Wild Bill” supposed great potential, Dreser derived his Hickok [Figure 20] and Kit Carson [Figure
21] actually frequented opium dens more
1920, forcing addicts to buy from illegal often than saloons. The stereotyped picture we have of the cowhand belly up to the bar drinking whiskey straight after a long hard ride on the dusty trail is only part of the consumption in China, India, and Burma.
Discovery of Heroin®
cowhand was not belly up to a bar at all.
opium was restricted to registered Chinese opium smokers and Indian opium eaters.
company of an oriental prostitute. It was to spend several days and nights at a time morphine, as previously indicated, had been the lower region of Burma thrived despite British efforts to maintain a strict monopoly eventually becoming physically addicted to on the opium trade. To this day, the Shan commercial potential. Scientists had been is one of the world’s leading centers of looking for some time for a non-addictive substitute for morphine, then widely used century, the Chinese leadership worked in companies to label their patent medicines respiratory diseases. If diacetylmorphine a variety of ways to stop the flow of opium with their complete contents. As a result, could be shown to be such a product, Bayer into their country. In 1910, after 150 years the availability of opiate drugs in the U.S.
– and Dreser – would hit the jackpot.
significantly declined. In 1909, Congress in the Bayer laboratory in 1897 – by Felix convince the British to dismantle the India- abuse and addiction. It required doctors, legislation on narcotics, which imposed a prescribed narcotics (cocaine and heroin) on animals, on some Bayer’s workers, and was four times stronger than morphine.
Creating the brand name “Heroin®” was Naturalists and Physicians, claiming it was medicine than codeine but had only a tenth of its toxic effects. It was also more effective than morphine as a painkiller. “It was safe. It wasn’t habit-forming.” In short, Dreser public but the publicity material sent to what was then a desperate need – not for a [Figure 23]. One
already stated, tuberculosis and pneumonia were then the leading causes of death, and severely incapacitating. Heroin, which both depresses respiration and, as a sedative, gives a restorative night’s sleep, seemed a godsend at the turn of the 20th century.
Figure 23
already written about the drug in medical journals and studies had endorsed his view that heroin could be effective in treating Journal in 1900. “It’s not hypnotic, and – [Figure 22]
there’s no danger of acquiring a habit.” would later be done with Aspirin®, flyers Figure 22
thousands to physicians in Europe and the report patients developing “tolerance” to U.S. (For the information of collectors, the denounced it as “an extremely dangerous poison.” By 1902, when heroin sales were ton of heroin a year, and exporting the drug Bayer’s net profits, French and American to 23 countries. The country where it really addicts, a craze for patent medicines, and a relatively lax regulatory framework.
around the world, and most were favorable, if cautious. In 1906 the American Medical lacing their products with Bayer heroin.
There were heroin pastilles, heroin cough use, though with strong reservations about lozenges, heroin tablets, water-soluble salts a “habit” that was “readily formed.” and a heroin elixir in a glycerine solution.
(The containers for these various products are what hundreds of collectors seek today.) heroin-related admissions at New York andPhiladelphia hospitals, and in East Coast Habit-forming Nostrums
of those that contained habit-forming drugs “junkie.” Heroin had, and has, a number indica; et cetera (all containers of these smack, skag, dope, H, junk, hammer, slow, gear, harry, piss, shit and horse. Prohibition next year the use of heroin withoutprescription was outlawed in the U.S. (Acourt ruling in 1919 also determined itillegal for doctors to prescribe it to addicts.) project, this disappointment could havespelled career disaster. Luckily, althoughhis first “baby” was showing signs ofturning into a monster, he had belatedlyadopted another: aspirin. ResearcherArthur Eichengruen, refusing to acceptDreser’s rejection of ASA (acetylsalicylicacid), had continued to investigate it andto lobby for its development. Eventually,Dreser recognizing which way the wind wasblowing, tested ASA on himself and finallypublished an enthusiastic scientific paperrecommending it, particularly for thetreatment of rheumatism – but calculatinglyomitting to mention the contributions ofEichengruen and chemist Felix Hoffmann.
In February 1899, the Brand name“Aspirin®” was registered, and in June,was launched by Bayer.
itself. As a painkiller without undesirableside effects, it was unique. By the end of1899 it was being used all over Europe andthe U.S., and by the time the heroin bubbleburst, aspirin had more than filled the gap.
The Bayer company was on its way tobecoming an industrial giant.
to have received any special compensationfor their efforts. For Dreser, though, therewards were spectacular.
The next issue of Bottles and Extras will conclude this article with Part II, which willbegin with “The History of Aspirin.”

Source: http://www.fohbc.org/PDF_Files/Heroin_Aspirin_Part1_CMunsey.pdf