'Watson, the Needle!'

Mike Jay writes to share his latest essay on turn of the century views on cocaine.At one point in time cocaine was all the rage, being used in patent medicines and soda fountains, and creeping into the literary mind of the world's most famous sleuth.

Cocaine was the great pharmaceutical success story of the last decades of the nineteenth century. In a few short years, it went from a minor item in specialist catalogues to a major seller in a huge range of preparations in high-street chemists, grocers and general stores. It was hailed as a miracle of modern medical science, a panacea for all manner of minor ailments -- but also, increasingly, as a dangerous and addictive novelty, a social menace and even a new ‘scourge of humanity’. During this period of the cocaine boom -- in retrospect, the euphoric high before the crash -- its impact on the public consciousness is vividly illuminated by the enduring literary character who emerged from its golden age: Sherlock Holmes.