antique bottles THE MEDICINE CHEST --- BY DR. RICHARD CANNON

TUCKER'S ASTHMA SPECIFIC

My bottle nicely embossed Nathan Tucker, M.D. / shield over star / Specific / For Asthma, Hay Fever / And All Catarral / Diseases of the Res- / piratory Organs, 4 inches tall, clear, round, bimal, contained a product that was included in Nostrums and Quackery, First Edition, published by the American Medical Association. It was based on an article, which appeared in the journal of the A.M.A. on May 20, 1911. Dr. Tucker of Mount Gilead, Ohio, sold 4 ounces plus the atomizer for local application for $12.50. My bottle holds 2 ounces.

Nathan Tucker, Md. Specific bottle.

Daniel L. Rhodebeck of Belleville, Ohio, and the Morrow County Historical Society, supplied a photograph and biographical information about Nathan Tucker. He was born in Washington County, New York, August 28, 1838, studied medicine in the office of Dr. George Allen and Son in Salem, N.Y., and was graduated in medicine after taking two courses at Bellevue Hospital, New York, N.Y., in 1866. He engaged in general practice, and moved to Mt. Gilead in 1889. Except for Tucker's Asthma Specific, I have little information about Dr. Tucker's medicine business. It must have done well because he became involved real estate and served as vice president on one bank and director of two others. Many of the buildings that Dr. Tucker built in downtown Mt. Gilead remain today. His office building for the laboratories is now a funeral home. Dr. Tucker died in 1920. His medicine business was taken over by his nephew, Dr. Will B. Robinson, in 1910, and he continued to manage the Tucker Laboratory until 1944. Then his son, Dr. Gerald B. Robinson, ran the business until he lost his life in an airplane crash in 1959. The Northfield Laboratories of Northfield, Ill., then purchased the holdings and marketed the “original formula” under the name Asthmacaine. Doctors were able to order Asthmacaine directly, or issue a prescription and have the local drug store purchase it.

The A.M.A. became interested in Tucker's Asthma Specific when 4 out of 5 independent analyses from 1903-1911 showed cocaine hydrochloride from 1 to 1.38%, or up to 0.4 of a gram per ounce. One found only atropine sulfate, which is potentially toxic, but not addictive.

Before the sixteenth, the Indians of Peru had discovered that chewing the leaves of the coca plant made them insensitive to fatigue. The Spaniards introduced the plant into Europe as a botanical curiosity. Nieman isolated the alkaloid cocaine from the leaves and observed its local anesthetic effect in 1860. After Koller used cocaine for eye surgery in 1884, its use grew rapidly. However, two problems became obvious; it was habit forming and toxic. An overdose could produce tremors, delirium, convulsions, and even death from respiratory failure or cardiovascular collapse.

Nathan Tucker	Nathan Tucker ad. Probably Dr. Tucker demonstrating the Atomizer.

The A.M.A. article mentioned two deaths from Tucker's Asthma Specific, one in a 5 year old child and the other in a 36 year old woman. A British agent had been prosecuted for selling Tucker's Asthma Specific without labeling the preparation “poison”. The Massachusetts State Board of Health in 1907, listed it among other cocaine containing preparations which should not be sold in that state.

These are the concluding sentences in Nostrums and Quackery: “Under existing federal law, it is impossible to reach the men who engage in this cocaine dispensing traffic, unless they make misstatements on the label. It is high time; then, that the various states enact such laws as will make the promiscuous distribution of cocaine a penal offense. When this has been done, Nathan Tucker may perforce engage in a business that will be more respectable, if less profitable, than his present occupation.”

Dr. Tucker looks like a nice guy. I bet that he or Dr. Robinson changed the formula. However, it sounds like even Asthmacaine still contained some cocaine.

Did you enjoy this article? Every month Antique Bottle and Glass Collector magazine gives you neat articles like this one.

Why not subscribe today!

it's easy just click here. SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION

Return me to: HOME PAGE - Go back to: MEDICINE CHEST