Dopesick
by Beth Macy, Apollo, 384pp, £20
In 1895, heroin was readily available at any American drug store or by mail order. Babies were frequently prescribed medicine containing morphine, codeine, opium, cannabis indica and heroin, a mixture advertised as “containing nothing injurious to the youngest babe”.
Most physicians were perfectly happy with this, but after a while a few prominent doctors began to criticise their over-subscribing peers. Only by 1906 did the American Medical Association step in and suggest this might present a problem.
