The following communication was sent out by the Department of the Interior, as a result of the alarming reports which were regularly reaching Washington regarding the prevalence of drunkenness among the Indians, despite the fact that "no liquor" was sold in these government reservations. The fact was that the Indians had discovered this pleasant tonic.
To Indian Agents and School Superintendents in charge of Agencies:
In connection with this investigation, please give particular attention to the proprietary medicines and other compounds which the traders keep in stock, with special reference to the liability of their misuse by Indians on account of the alcohol which they contain. The sale of ----, which is on the lists of several traders, is hereby absolutely prohibited. As a medicine, something else can be substituted; as an intoxicant, it has been found too tempting and effective....
Mr. S. H. Adams in "The Great American Fraud" writes as follows: "The other reason why this or some other of its class is often the agency of drunkenness instead of whisky is that the drinker of it doesn't want to get drunk, at least she doesn't know that she wants to get drunk. I use the feminine pronoun advisedly, because the remedies of this class are largely supported by women. Several of the others of these well-known proprietary medicines depend for their popularity chiefly on their alcohol. One celery compound relieves depression and lack of vitality on the same principle that a cocktail does, and with the same necessity for repetition. I know an estimable lady from the Middle West who visited her dissipated brother in New York--dissipated from her point of view, because she was a pillar of the W. C. T. U., and he frequently took a cocktail before dinner and came back with it on his breath, whereon she would weep over him as one lost to hope. One day, in a mood of brutal exasperation, when he had not had his drink and was able to discern the flavor of her grief, he turned on her: 'I'll tell you what's the matter with you,' he said, 'You're drunk--maudlin drunk!'
"She promptly and properly went into hysterics. The physician who attended diagnosed the case more politely, but to the same effect, and ascertained that she had consumed something like half a bottle of a certain swamp root that afternoon. Now, swamp root is a very creditable 'booze,' but much weaker in alcohol than most of its class. The brother was greatly amused until he discovered, to his alarm, that his drink abhorring sister couldn't get along without her patent medicine bottle! She was in a fair way, quite innocently, of becoming a drunkard."