Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 December 1890 — QUIDIDE FOR COLDS. [ARTICLE]

QUIDIDE FOR COLDS.

Bobs Bed Take Heaps of It'ad Get Dragk, ad Others Do Well'od Less —Ka-tchoo: New York Sub. _ A blear-eyed, red-nosed man, wifi tears, rolling down his cheeks, walkeX into Perry’s pharmacy the ; other uay and said: wad thirty graids of qif d:de.” Dr. Johnson looked at bun sharply and then went away to fill the order. “Thag you,” said the blear-eyed man as he swallowed half a dozen little white pellets and walked out. “That will make his ears sing,” said the .Doctor, “and in all probability it will make him very dizzy if he has not been in the habit of using quinine in large quantities. The drug is much alftised. Every one uses it more or less, and few people know its power.” The effects of a large dose of quinine frequently produce a delirium similar to that caused by alcoholic stimulants. Last week the Sun printed a dispatch from Sing Sing about a fifteen-year-old girl who had been crazed by the drug. She was the daughter of a well known resident of North Tarrytown and had been suffering with neuralgia for several days. She took a large dose of quinine and went to bed. Later in the evening she was found near the depot in a demented condition. She was partly dressed and had walked from her parents’ home up the railroad track. She had passed a number of trains in safety, and when she was found she acted like a person suffering from alcoholic delirium. ‘ ‘There is no doubt that the effects of a large dose of quinine are sometimes serious,” saida physician to the Sun reporter, “and I now recall one casein particular. It was during my service in Bellevue. A man. was brought to the hospital and placed in the cells where patients suffering from delirium tremens are kept. There were some peculiar features about the case, and after an examination we sent him to the insane ward. He acted like a crazy man. After a few hours of treatment he became quiet, and we then learned that he had taken 150 grains of quinine in fifteen grain doses within a few hours. He recovered from the effects of it after a very short time. There is probably no drug so generally used for half a dozen ailments as quinine. While I was South some time ago I saw men take it by the teaspoon for malaria. A person who has been taking quinine for a long time does not mind having the ringing sensations in the ears and other spmptoms that make themselves felt in a person who seldom uses the drug. Ten grains will produce these symptoms in many people, and if the patient has been suffering from neuralgia, for instance, that amount of quinine will sometimes act like an alcoholic stimulant. They will become “lightheaded,” and, at times, delirious. 1 know a number of people in New York who take quinine regularly, and think tnat they could not live without it. I don’t think that it can be called a habit, like the cocaine and morphine habits, because it is not a drug that grows on one. Those peowho take it regularly have some disease that they are treating. In cases of malaria it is invaluable. You know that during the war it was worth its weight in gold. Quinine is now very cheap. It is being cultivated in India and the large quantities of it that are used nowadays make it profitable products. I have never known of a dose ofj quinine producing death, though undoubtedly it could be taken in such quantities as to be fatal.