From the Journal of the American Medical Association (100 years ago):
The convenience of the tablet form of medication has doubtless developed in the medicine-taking public a dangerous contempt for potent drugs that has been bred of familiarity. This was recently exemplified by the case reported in our British contemporaries of a woman who took thirteen aspirin tablets between 3 pm one day and 10 am the next. She died of heart failure and, in accordance with the medical testimony, a verdict was returned of death accelerated by an overdose of aspirin.
The very advantages that a tablet has in case of administration, convenience and portability, are in themselves elements of danger, when drugs in this form are indiscriminately used by the public.
JAMA, 1908;51:2220,2228
Posted by Scott W. Yates, MD, MBA, MS, FACP
