Hazard a Swig? The Coca Wine of the Hazards

As “Family and Dispensing Chemists,” the Hazard family distributed an advertising card (left) for Coca Wine, a mixture of the cocaine from coca leaves (upper right) with wine. From their offices in Rhode Island and New York, the Hazards ’ “Erythroxylon Coca” was labeled (lower right) as “An agreeable Stimulant& Tonic for the Brain Nerves and Stomach. ” Adults were directed to drink a “Wineglass Full at or after Meals” and “Children one Half the dose.” Laced with cocaine, such wines and subsequent carbonated beverages became so socially available that cocaine anesthetics were rapidly accepted by clinicians and by the public as anesthesi a using a familiar drug. (Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology.)
Source: Anesthesiology - Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: research