Latest news with #BromptonCocktail
The Guardian
08-05-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
A cocktail that's too much of a good thing
Regarding the Brompton cocktail, a mixture of heroin and cocaine that was used for severe pain in terminally ill patients (Letters, 6 May), the Glasgow recipe was heroin, cocaine, gin, Largactil and honey. It could be alarmingly effective. Many years ago, my late partner, faced with a patient in intractable pain, issued a prescription for the cocktail. In the middle of evening surgery, my partner was called to an emergency at the local pub. The patient had felt so much better, he decided to go for a drink, and the combination of the Brompton plus the traditional 'hauf an' a hauf' (whisky and ale), had proved too much. He was carried home and told to stick to soft WatersonGlasgow As an excise officer in the 1970s, I used to visit Huddersfield Royal Infirmary to authorise spirit repayment claims on excise duty on spirits used in the preparation of Brompton cocktails. I doubt very much if similar visits are made nowadays, but it made the work of excise officers GarforthIlkley, West Yorkshire I too was an apprentice pharmacist working in a pit village in the Yorkshire coalfield in the early 1960s when we received a prescription for a Brompton cocktail with varied strengths of morphine and cocaine, together with whisky and chloroform water, for a man who we knew to be terminally ill with lung disease. The prescription was presented by his wife with the message: 'And he says can he have Johnnie Walker.' We complied of course!Brian SandallWhitstable, Kent Do you have a photograph you'd like to share with Guardian readers? If so, please click here to upload it. A selection will be published in our Readers' best photographs galleries and in the print edition on Saturdays.
The Guardian
06-05-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
When a cocktail was the best medicine
Regarding Dom Pérignon on prescription (Letters, 1 May), when I was a pharmacist apprentice in the 1960s, we were able to dispense a Brompton cocktail. This was primarily alcohol laced with morphine and cocaine, and was used to alleviate pain and distress in terminally ill patients. It was stored under lock and key. We humble apprentices were permitted to compound it, but only in the eagle-eyed presence of the pharmacist. Chris Osborne West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire Re having shoes on or off at home (Polly Hudson, 30 April), while on holiday in Scandinavia several years go, I noticed that every home I visited had a bag of felt slippers in graduated sizes. They were for guests to use, and were warm and comfortable. I brought some home and hung them up. None of our visitors want to use them and it feels slightly un-British to imply that their feet might be dirty. Duncan Grimmond Harrogate, North Yorkshire Private eye clinics are reportedly making 'eye‑watering' profits doing cataracts for the NHS (Profits from NHS England eye care outsourcing same as 100 PFI contracts, research finds, 4 May). I do hope that word was chosen deliberately. Cassy Firth Leeds Dark chocolate digestive, dunked in decent white coffee until the chocolate just starts to yield to the temperature, eat chocolate side down (Letters, 5 May). Who knew there was any other way to eat them. Stephen Bassey Porthtowan, Cornwall I eat chocolate digestives both ways – depends which end of the packet I open. Frank Haines Devoran, Cornwall Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
