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Deadly Cure

Page 28

by Lawrence Goldstone


  Fraser’s tablets were real, as was Orangeine. Horatio Fraser’s factory in Brooklyn burned down in 1905, with the loss of 200,000 Heroin tablets. The ad for Orangeine referred to in chapter 1 appeared in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle on September 23, 1899.

  The celebration for George Dewey was as described. Five million people were said to have lined the parade route—on a per capita basis, the largest crowd ever to applaud a military leader in the nation’s history. Dewey ran for president twice but failed to secure the Republican nomination. The Dewey Arch, thrown up as quickly as described, deteriorated almost as fast. By 1903, it had begun to crumble. A campaign to raise funds to repair the structure failed, and the arch was torn down in 1906.

  Justin Herold was a real person, a fascinating man who joined a number of progressive causes. He was seriously hurt in a trolley accident in 1906, remarried in his sixties, and fathered a child in his seventies. Abraham Jacobi was also real. He remains a legend among pediatricians. The Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx is named for him. Frederick Wurster was indeed the last mayor of Brooklyn. He never again ran for public office. The antipathy between Dewey and Theodore Roosevelt existed.

  The Anschutz family is fictional, although the atrocities committed by American soldiers in the Philippines are not. Arnold Frias, the De Kuypers, and Noah Whitestone are all figments, but the representation of the practice of medicine in 1900 is accurate.

  Heroin became a scourge, but its manufacture was not outlawed until 1914. Sale and possession, however, did not become illegal until 1919.

  IMAGES ON PAGES 293 AND 294: Advertisements for Heroin, circa 1900. Published in the U.S. before 1923 and public domain.

  ALSO BY

  LAWRENCE GOLDSTONE

  NONFICTION

  Birdmen

  Drive

  Going Deep

  Dark Bargain

  The Activist

  Inherently Unequal

  FICTION

  Anatomy of Deception

  The Astronomer

  DEADLY CURE

  Pegasus Books Ltd.

  148 W. 37th Street, 13th Floor

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2017 by Lawrence Goldstone

  First Pegasus Books cloth edition November 2017

  Interior design by Maria Fernandez

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine, or electronic publication; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission from the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  ISBN: 978-1-68177-552-4

  ISBN: 978-1-68177-604-0 (e-book)

  Distributed by W. W. Norton & Company

 

 

 


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