POISONING BY SULPHONAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11867, 20 January 1902, Page 7

POISONING BY SULPHONAL.

TO THE EDITOR.

_ Sir,—l shall bo greatly obliged if you will kindly allow me to express in your paper my personal experience of the great danger people generally, more especially women, run in taking as a harmless sleep-produoing agent, the abovenamed drug, sulphonal. ; For years the majority of medical men have assured too trusting patients that sulphonal was a perfectly harmless opiate, as harmless, according to their descriptions, as a bread pill. , * " Our American cousins discovered some time ago that not only did it cause temporary insanity if not taken with extreme caution, but that an unusual number of deaths from heart failure occurring during the past ten years had been traced to its pernicious influence. A small number of English medical men of late have advised caution in its use, on the ground that its abuse resulted in temporary insanity/ but few mention that, taken constantly, it will cause death as surely after a time as arsenic or strychnine... It undermines the strength very ' gradually, so that the victim is only aware that she feels weak, and languid, and ill. These sensations increase, till, in a longer or shorter period, if the drug continues to be taken constantly' serious symptoms appear, which culminate in coma and death.

Two cases of this poisoning by sulphonal have lately come to my knowledge as undoubted facts, and I feel it a matter of conscience to publish what I know, in the hope that it may prove a warning to many who take this drug in the firm belief that it is quite innocent. . - , A -medical man informed me a short time ago that ho knew of one lady who had taken no'less than 30 to 40. tabloids of sulphonal in one day, the. result being most disastrous.

■ I have known many medical men during the past : 30 years, both as friends ami m their professional capacity, and ask you to believe that I speak from .knowledge when I . warn you that 110 honourable doctor will ever be found to recommend the : unlimited use of this class of drug to anyone— the reverse, in fact. When you corhe under one who does, do not. trust him, for he will almost certainly belong to one of two classes, the poor practitioner, who is eager to keep you on the' sick-list, so as to profit by the large bill- he will presently send in to you, or the man who is himself addicted to drugs: generally morphia— therefore quite unfit, to prescribe for anyone.—l am, etc., ' :• » Common Sense.