In the course of the First World War, mind-altering agents were used for
both medical and non-therapeutic purposes. And they were issued by the authorities as well as
self-prescribed by soldiers. Sedative drugs such as alcohol, morphine, snow-white, and opioids
helped soldiers to subdue the physical and emotional pain, relax, and alleviate the horrors
of combat but not without a cost. This was a time before drug regulation and awareness and things
couldn’t have been different than any other war that followed. Welcome to Nutty History! Today
let’s find out what drugs were like in the great war of 1915 to 1919 and how it helped people.
When it comes to pain relievers, sadly little had changed in the time between the American Civil War
and the beginning of the First World War. The art of analgesics was still all about Morphine
as the controversial narcotic was routinely administered to subdue the pain of the wounded.
And oh dear, there was no end to the number of casualties among the servicemen. Shrapnel from
exploding shells was ripping flesh and shattering bones, causing ghastly wounds to the kidney,
lungs, and bladder as well as facial mutilations. Injuries like these caused agonizing suffering;
torment that could only be countered by the most potent analgesic,
morphine sulfate, aptly named after the Greek god of sleep, Morpheus. But morphine is not a
narcotic to be taken lightly, pun intended! During the initial treatment and dressing of wounds,
front-line medics marked patients’ foreheads with crosses in permanent ink after administering the
morphine, in order to prevent drug overdose at further stages of medical care. A widely
accepted recommended dose was one-fourth of grain or sixteen milligrams. But despite all precautions
patients were mistakenly issued the narcotic more than once and the badly injured were deliberately
given larger amounts to ease their very severe pain. Due to the chaos caused by the war,
it was simply proving to be near impossible to avoid such mistakes. On top of that, the wounded
self-medicated themselves with morphine while awaiting professional aid. One of the downsides
of morphine overdose was the drug obscuring the clinical picture and hampering proper diagnosis.
Often, the personnel at clearing stations and hospitals could not determine whether
a patient’s condition resulted from the excessive intake of morphia or his wounds.
The concerns over persisting morphine addiction and overconsumption in military infirmaries
had a bunch of physicians arguing that patients would be better off to undergo the pain until they
reached advanced treatment stations. Perhaps the most famous of these patients-turned-morphinists
was a fighter pilot ace and later powerful member of the Nazi elite and commander-in-chief of the
Luftwaffe, Hermann Goering. Yet, as no equally potent alternative was available, morphine
remained the preferred choice for pain relievers. But this was the day and age when opioids not only
ruled the analgesics but were also the preferred method to make babies sleep peacefully at night.
And that was the generation called “The Greatest Generation” we are not even joking! Morphine
was also often used for euthanizing soldiers who were maimed beyond recovery and lethal injection
was the only way to put them to rest. A British private, recalling heavy casualties in the Battle
of Aubers Ridge in May 1915, remembered a man who had no eyes, no nose, no chin, no mouth, and yet
he was alive! As the medicine was not advanced enough to deal with such horrendous casualties,
a fourfold humanitarian dose of Morphine was administered to put victims out of their
misery but often doctors and sergeants would lack the courage to do the necessary thing
and had to rely on nurses and privates. Other analgesics used in World War One apart from
morphine sulfate were sodium salicylate and “opii tinctura camphorata”. Morphine Sulfate was also a
popular solution for anesthetic along with good old chloroform and Goprelto. Goprelto, for the
unaware, is the hydrochloride salt form of the tropane alkaloid ‘Snow White’ with central nervous
systems stimulating and local anesthetic activity. Yes, the same Snow White that grows naturally in
Coca Leaves in South America and is responsible for the rise of some of the biggest Narcos of
the last 50 years. But back in the first Great War, ‘Taxi’ was thundering through the trenches.
In the 19th century, Europeans discovered the Andean people’s secret of using the
coca leaves for physical endurance. Once Snow White was isolated from coca leaves in 1859,
a German pharmaceutical company Merck of Darmstadt launched its manufacture and marketing in 1862.
Interestingly, back then Aunt Nora was described as a stimulant that is peculiarly adapted to
elevate the working ability of the body, without any dangerous effect. The concerned narcotic was
tried in the military for the first time in 1883. Theodore Aschenbrandt, the Bavarian
Army physician who carried out these experiments recognized the potential utility of the drug in
its appetite-suppressing effect and supposed that it could help reduce army food supplies by up to
20 percent. This and the stimulating properties of Snow White were the reasons why the drug was so
widely used in the great war. When war broke out, Columbian blow was easily available at pharmacies
in Europe and America, both as a sole medicine and as an ingredient in many popular medications
and tonics used for a runny nose and coughing. In fact, one of the most popular American medicines,
Ryno’s Hay Fever, was nothing but pure Snow White. Back in the day Tobacco and Happy
Powder were considered “equally harmless”. Oh, how wrong our great grandparents were!
Apart from being used as a local anesthetic, Snow white was issued by the military authorities for
enhancement purposes. Soldiers could even purchase it by themselves if they felt ‘the need’ for it.
It was so widely common that the rate of its consumption by fighting men remains unknown
and there is no way to estimate the figures. The drug was the morale booster, the fuel for
the inner fire, and the overall mood enhancer in the trenches. It helped soldiers calm down, focus,
and improve performance. The drug was taken during long-distance flights by German fighter pilots
and, as French records revealed, early airmen were particularly keen on the stimulant.
The drug helped air duelists to make use of the cold up there by fortifying them against it.
However, the popularity of the Columbian drug was far more intense in infantry than airmen.
The German Army Command planned at the dawn of war to issue each of its soldiers’ daily
rations of Snow White to decrease their appetite and increase stamina. The only reason that this
ridiculous idea was abandoned was that there was not enough supply of the drug in question.
The British on the other hand were also distributing the drug under the code named
“Forced March '' and issued it in the form of a gelatin coated pill. Along with snow white,
this little bugger also had cola nut extract to bring out the flavor of the blow. Famous
store Harrods was offering small sets of morphine and snow white with syringes and needles. It was
advertised in the Times as “a useful present for friends at the front.” While well-known
pharmacy Savory & Moore was selling a mail-order medical kit containing snow white and smack.
The acceptance for Lady Snow didn’t last for the entire war. While France was accusing Germany of
smuggling the happy powder into French cities and trenches to subvert their war efforts,
there were wide protests against the use of the drug in Britain as well. Media and politicians
of Britain were fueling a nationwide drug scare against the Columbian blow and had branded the
narcotics deadlier than the enemy bullets. This hysteria was the outcome of a Canadian major
discovering in 1916 that a London-based escort and her agent were supplying the blow to his units.
The investigation revealed that some forty men in a local camp had developed an addiction.
The incident, highly publicized, worked in favor of the proponents of introducing tight
governmental control of habit-forming drugs. The case provided a convenient pretext for launching
the anti-drug campaign, which found fruitful soil in the nation’s wartime anxieties and suspicions.
By late 1915, Merck experienced a dramatic fall in the annual production of White Gold
down to merely 447 kilograms, compared to nearly 9,000 kilograms in 1913.
The war had interrupted international trade and impeded the supply of European factories with
Peruvian coca leaves. With politicians and media drawing on paranoia, the moral panic regarding
the blow created a general movement against drugs. On May 11th, 1916, the Army Council of
Britain issued an order banning any unauthorized sale or supply of psychoactive substances to any
member of the armed forces, except for medical reasons and only by prescription. On one hand,
World War I facilitated greater consumption of narcotics like snow white and morphine
but it also paved the path for comprehensive national substance control regimes. It may
have not been able to entirely abolish the use of drugs in warfare, as evident by the use of amps in
the second world war and the smack in the Vietnam War. But it sure was the first step to recognize
and address the ill-effects of such substances on soldiers. Tell us in the comments, which other war
would you like us to cover in this series. And as always thanks for watching Nutty History.