Great Construction

Medicinal Poisons Should Be Feared—
How Drugs Will Be the Ruin of the Nation

     In the “Sociology for Adults” column of the Asahi newspaper dated 16 August appeared the article below titled “Philopon and Adorm.”
     “Recently the purported mental illness of Ango Sakaguchi as well as the addictions of Sakanosuke Oda, Osamu Dazai, and Miss Wakana involving drugs such as philopon and adorm are all said to be the results of the usage of these stimulants and sedatives.
     “Ingesting fifty milligrams of philopon and then as if poking along like a tired horse struggling to write manuscripts and then since sleep cannot be had, ingesting sixty milligrams of adorm, repeatedly while drinking alcohol, is to make a fatal experiment in addiction. It is not called philopon because you can blow your fatigue away. It seems that ‘Philopon’ comes from Greek meaning ‘to love work.’ Scientifically, it has the structure of 1-phenyl-2-methylaminopropene and is in the same family as ephedrine and adrenaline, and while Dr. Nagayoshi Nagai was discovering ephedrine, the Chinese herbal medicine company Mao-o was already producing it in the late 1880s and early 1890s. In 1935, benzedorin in the United States, and in 1938, in Germany, beruvitin [phonetic] appeared on the market, and after their stimulating effects were rediscovered, it debuted in Japan in 1941 as philopon. After the war, the demand for philopon came from writers struggling to overcome the reduced value of their work and from entertainers who were required to work late into the night on location.
     Like coffee, philopon stimulates the cerebrum, and it also raises the blood pressure like ephedrine. Therefore, feelings of sleepiness and melancholy can arise, and the desire for activity occurs, the user becoming quite talkative. Miss Wakana appeared to have loved this aspect of the drug, but since usage led to temporary feelings of lethargy, he became quite fatigued, and needed periods of rest. In addition, there are those who collapsed after even minor surgery, those who got agitated after their anesthesia wears off, those affected by transmission of chronic infectious diseases, and others with abnormal spikes and drops of blood pressure. The same type of drug is available over the counter under the name of zedrinhospitan [phonetic].
     “Adorm was originally a sedative introduced to replace Carmotin, Veronal, and Adalin. Scientifically, it has the structure of the tongue-twisting components of 1-2-cyclohexelnile-ethyl-barbituricacid-calcium, and is more efficacious than Carmotin. If abused together with stimulants and sedatives, it is known to present with addictive symptoms as the amounts are increased, but unlike narcotics, if the normal person can exhibit a little self-control, recovery is possible. The Neurology Department at the University of Tokyo says that for people to use enough philopon and adorm to get them to Matsuzawa [a mental hospital] means they probably have a predilection for the drugs.”
     The preceding article supports my propositions. It is a fact without any room for doubt that the greatest cause for the recent series of the deaths of well-known people in various fields is their addiction to these drugs. As this article shows, pharmaceuticals have good effects but also bad effects, and if addiction is the result, users cannot do without them. If that were the only effect, then the situation would not be that bad, but since they are so potent, the brain may deteriorate, bringing on abnormal weakness and damage to the heart, the most likely result being death.
Oh, I truly want to impress upon the ordinary citizen how terrifying medicinal poisons are.

 Hikari, Issue 26, page 2, September 10, 1949
translated by cynndd

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“Yakuzai Bōkokuron—Yakudoku Osoru Beshi” was published originally on the second page of Hikari, Issue 26 on September 10, 1949. Although no translations of “Yakuzai Bōkokuron—Yakudoku Osoru Beshi” are known to exist, this essay was reprinted on page 98 of the anthology Igaku Kankei Goronbun Shū (Collected Essays on Medical Science) that did enjoy a limited circulation. Igaku Kankei Goronbun Shū contains no publication data, but internal evidence suggests that its editing stopped several months preceding Meishu-sama’s death. Furthermore, since the book lacks publication data, whether the volume had Meishu-sama’s imprimatur or not is unknown, so details concerning this volume are probably impossible to research.