The Licensed trade: an independent survey / by Edwin A. Pratt.

  • Pratt, Edwin A., 1854-1922.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Licensed trade: an independent survey / by Edwin A. Pratt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    the (so-called) prohibitory law in Vermont and other States, where alcohol was not to be sold except for medical, chemical, or mechanical purposes, he arrived at the conclusion that many persons were using some artificial stimulant in lieu of alcohol, and he addressed a circular letter to the keepers of drug stores and general stores in the State of Vermont, asking for particulars as to their sales of various drugs. The replies he received were far from complete, and he concluded that the figures he got could be multiplied by five, and still remain below the consumption. He says concerning them: In the regular drug stores and in i6o of the 172 general stores in the State of Vermont they sell every month 3,300,000 doses of opium, besides what they dispense in patent medicines, and besides what the doctors dispense, which gives one and a half doses of opium to every man and woman in the State of Vermont above the age of twenty-one years every day in the year. (By dose I mean I grain of opium, ^ grain of morphia, ^ ounce of paregoric, and 20 drops of laudanum). And the amount consumed would average a dose to every man, woman, and child in the State of Vermont every day in the year. Taking 69 out of 244 towns in the State (where go per cent, of the doctors dispense their own drugs), 116 of 130 drug stores reported total sales during the course of a single month as follows: Opium, 47 lbs. 12 ozs.; morphine powders, 19 lbs. 150ZS.; morphine pills, 3,338 grs.; Dover powder, 25 lbs.; paregoric, 32 gals. I pt.; laudanum, 32 gals.; cocaine, 27 ozs. I dr. 30 grs.; chloral, 32 lbs. 4 ozs.; Indian hemp, 37 ozs.; quinine powder, 15 lbs. 10 ozs.; quinine pills, 74,200 grs. In one of two drug stores in a certain town the monthly sales include 3 pounds of opium, I gallon of paregoric, f gallon of laudanum, 5 ounces of powdered quinine, and 1,000 2-grain quinine pills.