100 years ago in The Saratogian
Wednesday, April 11, 1917
Two arrests of Schenectady men in Saratoga Springs today “brought to the possession of the police evidence which implicates a well known physician of this city as the source from which dozens of ‘dope fiends’ from Troy, Albany and vicinity cities have received the necessary prescriptions to enable them to be well supplied with drugs,” The Saratogian reports.
Investigators don’t provide the suspected doctor’s name, but “an examination of the drug books in the local drug stores revealed that one physician was apparently issuing the majority of the prescriptions. Names of persons who were known not to live here frequently appeared as the drug-users.”
A federal law passed in 1914 a wide range of habitforming drugs can’t be sold without a prescription. Doctors are “forbidden to issue such prescription until, after examination and from personal knowledge, he believes the addict’s condition demands it.” They’re then “strictly enjoined” to prescribe “diminishing doses, with the evident intention of curing the patient by gradually cutting off his supply.”
Police chief James A. King and city health officer Dr. A. Sherman Downs tell reporters that they had warned the physician in question, but “his business and professional prominence were such as to turn suspicion aside” until today, when Anthony Caruso and Frank Kehoe are arrested after leaving the doctor’s office.
Kehoe says he lives in Schenectady, but was given three prescriptions identifying him as a resident of 86 Lake Avenue in Saratoga Springs, an address that does not exist. The “most interesting” of the prescriptions avows that Kehoe had been examined on April 15 – four days from now – and required thirteen grams of morphine.
Under interrogation by King, Kehoe explains that fellow drug users in Schenectady had told him that “a trip to Saratoga Springs and a visit to this physician will result in obtaining prescriptions for such quantities of drugs as the users wish.” Kehoe says he paid three dollars for each prescription.
“The charge made by physicians in Saratoga Springs for an ordinary office call is much less than $3,” a reporter notes, “To obtain the drug itself, it is necessary to pay the drug store a much larger amount. This makes the drug habit expensive. But it has been found that no drug-user permits the expense to keep him from the drug.”
Because Kehoe and Caruso weren’t able to get their prescriptions filled, “it was impossible to learn the name of the physician involved.”
King assures reporters, however, that “the name of the physician and the details will undoubtedly come out in court proceedings,” and “we have the strongest sort of case against this man.”