"Dr. W.H. Shoemaker, a talented and leading physician of this city, has been declared insane owing to have become a vicitm to the cocaine habit."
Cocaine, for a brief time, was a popular 19th-century anesthetic and treatment for minor illnesses, before people realized it was highly addictive. Physicians who had easy access to the drug often became hooked on it, as the following stories from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle demonstrate.
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“He Operated on Himself” (May 15, 1889): “Birmingham, Ala.–Dr. W.H. Shoemaker, a talented and leading physician of this city, has been declared insane owing to have become a victim to the cocaine habit. While under the influence of the drug he in December last performed upon himself probably the most unique and most remarkable surgical operation ever recorded. He had been a sufferer for some time from a tumor on his liver. One night while he was alone he took his surgical instruments and deliberately cut into the abdominal cavity, cut the tumor from his liver, sewed the incision up, showed the tumor next morning to his brother physicians and has since entirely recovered. His use of cocaine previous to the operation became habitual.”
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“He Gave Cocaine Recklessly” (February 25, 1893): “Jackson, Mich.–A local physician, himself a confirmed taker of cocaine, has brought many of his patients under its influence. Reputable medical men have determined that the practice must stop and that the practitioner himself be put under treatment or be debarred from practice. Some of the best class of citizens are addicted to the habit, and the local press publishes a list of hundreds. The majority of the victims became addicted to cocaine before knowing what they were taking, it having been administered for throat troubles, hay fever and many minor ills.”
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“Started a Fire in His Room” (December 17, 1896): “Crazed by the use of morphine, cocaine and whisky, Dr, Floyd Lamott Danforth, a dentist, with offices at East One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, New York, piled his effects in the center of the floor of his apartments early this morning and set fire to them. He then went out and told the police. The fire was extinguished before any material damage was done and the unfortunate man was taken to the East One Hundred and Twenty-fifth street station and locked up.”
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"Dr. Manaton is addicted to the use of cocaine." (Image by Anssi Pulkkinen.)
“Cocaine Made Him Crazy” (January 6, 1894): “Greenport, L.I.–The monotony of life in Greenport during the season was broken last night and the whole town was thrown into a fever of excitement by the antics of a crazy physician armed with an axe. The unfortunate is Dr. Manaton, who, associated with Dr. Wilson, has been practicing in Greenport since his removal from Brooklyn last summer.
Dr. Manaton is addicted to the use of cocaine. Last night he took an overdose of the drug and became violently insane. He had just retired to his room and was but partially dressed when the attack came upon him. His sister and the servant had retired and they were aroused by a tremendous racket in the doctor’s apartment. They realized that the windows were being shattered and the furniture being smashed and suspected the cause. The women locked themselves in the room and the work of destruction went on. They heard the doctor go down stairs and out into the yard. When he returned Miss Manaton peeped out of the door and saw that her brother had armed himself with an axe and with it he commenced to chop away the stair railing. The frenzied man caught sight of his sister through the partly open door and made a rush for her with the uplifted axe. She closed and locked the door and before he succeeded in breaking it in with the axe the two women escaped through a door into an adjoining room and made their way out of the house clad only in their night clothes.”