Mug Shot












			Bureau Of Identification, Department Of Police, San Francisco Name: August O'Dourel or O'Doul Color: White Reg. No. 23180 Alias: Jack Wright or Joe Wilson or Les Patrick Date of Arrest: Dec. 10 1913 Crime: Vag with 23179 (Vagrancy) both arms with hypo marks




	Museum Exposition: Often considered a phenomenon of recent times, administration of street drugs via hypodermic has been a practice for over a hundred years. Initial use of the hypodermic was in the administration of opiates, which was later adopted as a method for administering street heroin, as this exhibit from 1913 testifies

History of the Hypodermic Syringe

Many of the technical difficulties which had faced those experimenting with blood transfusion were removed after 1853 by the invention of the hypodermic syringe, with its hollow pointed needle. Credit for the evolution of this universally useful appliance is usually given to Doctor Alexander Wood (born 1817), who was appointed Secretary of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1850. For some time, Doctor Wood had been experimenting with a hollow needle for the administration of drugs. Eventually, he felt confident enough to publish in "The Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Review" a short paper - 'A New Method of treating Neuralgia by the direct application of Opiates to the Painful Points' - in which he showed that the method was not necessarily limited to the administration of opiates. At about the same time, Charles Gabriel Pravaz of Lyon was making a similar syringe which quickly came into use in many surgeries under the name of 'The Pravaz Syringe'.

Taken From:

Blood and Blood Transfusions  By Major R. Ellison, Surgeon 33rd Regiment, 1st Brigade Virginia Vol.

Museum Comment:

The very first record of a fatal overdose resulting from morphine administered by a syringe was Dr. Alexander Wood's own wife.