Bayer

Bayer was the pharmaceutical company that developed and commercialized heroin at the end of the nineteenth century, promoting it as a nonaddictive substitute for morphine and a remedy for a wide range of complaints. The book presents its campaign as an early example of a recurring danger: a powerful opioid could be framed as safe and broadly useful even as dependence emerged among people taking it under medical supervision.

Discovery and Development

Heroin’s path to Bayer began with a discovery made in 1874 by a British chemist researching alternatives to morphine that would not cause addiction. The finding attracted little notice at the time. Fourteen years after a legislature declined to approve a bill intended to address morphine use, Bayer chemist Heinrich Dreser encountered the work in pharmaceutical archives and recognized its potential. The episode places commercial drug development against a longer history of concern about morphine dependence, rather than presenting heroin as an entirely unforeseen medical problem.

The compound, diacetylmorphine, was more than twice as powerful as morphine, which was itself about ten times stronger than opium. Dreser nevertheless believed it could answer an urgent medical need. Pneumonia and tuberculosis were leading causes of death, antibiotics did not yet exist, and an effective cough suppressant was valuable. He expected heroin to suppress coughing as codeine did, but without codeine’s recognized addictive qualities. He instructed a laboratory assistant to synthesize it, and clinical testing began in 1897. The first tests were conducted on rabbits and frogs, followed by trials on Dreser and employees of the Bayer dye factory. From those early tests, Dreser saw substantial commercial promise.

A Medicine Marketed for Many Uses

Bayer’s case for heroin joined a specific therapeutic claim to a much broader sales pitch. At a presentation to the German medical academy the following year, Dreser emphasized the drug’s sedative and respiration-depressing effects in treating asthma, bronchitis, and tuberculosis. He also described it as suitable for baby colic, colds, influenza, joint pain, and other ailments. Bayer presented heroin not only as a cough remedy but as a product that might strengthen respiration and as a cure for alcoholism and morphine abuse.

That breadth mattered. A drug introduced as a substitute for one dependence-forming medicine was being offered for ordinary illnesses as well as serious respiratory disease. Bayer’s company doctor reinforced the assurances to physicians, reporting that weeks of treatment had produced no observed dependency. The company mailed free samples to doctors in America and Europe by the thousands, accompanied by testimonials asserting that addiction was scarcely possible. These activities made the safety claim part of the product’s promotion, not merely an isolated clinical observation.

Production and Everyday Reach

By 1899, Bayer was producing a ton of heroin annually and selling it in twenty-three countries. In the United States, heroin appeared in cough drops and baby-soothing syrups. Its use was not confined to a conspicuous group of illicit consumers: the book describes users that included war veterans, middle-aged barbers and teachers, shopkeepers, and housewives. Many remained functional and were taking the drug with a doctor’s approval. Their ability to conceal their use depended in part on maintaining a steady supply and not taking too much.

This domestic reach complicates the idea that addiction was always visible as social collapse or criminal activity. Some users could continue ordinary lives while taking an opioid regularly; dependence might remain hidden so long as their supply held. In that sense, the drug’s distribution and its reassuring reputation helped make risk less apparent, even to users whose habits were tied to medical treatment.

Historical Warning and Later Parallels

The book sets Bayer’s promotion within a history in which opioid assurances repeatedly outlasted the evidence behind them. By the turn of the twentieth century, some doctors were publicly warning that physicians’ own prescribing could create morphine dependence. One Brooklyn doctor had cautioned colleagues in 1895 against leaving patients morphine and syringes with instructions to use them whenever pain arose, arguing that some patients became dependent after only three or four doses. By 1900, more than 250,000 Americans were addicted to opium-derived painkillers. The warning makes Bayer’s claims about heroin’s safety part of an already developing debate over medical responsibility and preventable dependence.

The account later draws a structural comparison with Purdue Pharma’s promotion of OxyContin. In both episodes, company representatives presented a potent opioid as safe when used as directed and minimized the likelihood of addiction; the book does not treat the two companies’ campaigns as identical, but uses their resemblance to expose the recurrence of confident safety claims. In the later OxyContin era, pain assessment standards, pressure to treat pain more liberally, and pharmaceutical promotion helped expand opioid prescribing. Bayer’s earlier heroin campaign thus serves as historical context for the modern crisis: medical usefulness and commercial reach could coexist with assurances that made the possibility of addiction seem remote.