If they could pitch heroin as a new and nonaddictive substitute for morphine, Dreser and Bayer would both strike it rich. Presenting the drug to the German medical academy the following year, Dreser praised heroin’s sedative and respiration-depressing effects in treating asthma, bronchitis, and tuberculosis. It was a safe family drug, he explained, suitable for baby colic, colds, influenza, joint pain, and other ailments. It not only helped clear a cough, it also seemed to strengthen respiration—and it was a sure cure, Bayer claimed, for alcoholism and morphine abuse.
