Theriaki.
Devoted to the Interests of Opium Eaters.
1878-1886? Quarterly, annual
La Porte, IN.
Editor: Dr. Samuel B. Collins.
1/1, 1878-1886(?). 80-96 pp.

The cover of the 1878 volume recites "1868-1878" which may indicate a predecessor publication, probably a quarterly. This was an advertising compilation of endorsements and testimonials for Dr. Samuel B. Collins (1835-1893) and his Theriaki, a surefire cure for opium addiction. A history of La Porte, Indians, relates that in 1868 "a mechanic in La Porte, working at his trade, which was that of brick-layer, discovered a remedy by which those who had fallen to this fearful habit might be able to save themselves from a fate more terrible than that of the bound Prometheus." Whatever the cure may have consisted of (and the analyses done by establishment doctors showed it to be contain heavy doses of sulfate of morphia), it was apparently quite profitable and Collins' office became a showcase of the wonders of La Porte. Behind this simple account of frontier ingenuity lies the story told in the Banner of Light in 1869. On March 13, a letter from a grateful user (who had been using two pounds of laudanum a month) related that his old physician, a Dr. Wiley, who had been in the spirit land for seven years, appeared to him through the mediumship of Dr. Collins, and announced the formula for the marvelous cure that he had worked out through years of post-mortem research. With that as introduction, the Banner on May 29, 1869, carried Collins' advertisement: "Opium Eaters Cured by Spirit Direction." The same story graced the pages of the American Spiritualist and other spiritualist journals, and by December 1872, Emma Hardinge's Western Star was carrying a full-page cover advertisement for Theriaki, promising a free copy of Collins' pamphlet Theriaki and Their Last Dose, and a notice from Hardinge relating that her spirits had told her to recommended the remedy to a professor at Yale, who had been promptly cured.

The pre-history of Dr. Samuel B. Collins, the medium and entrepreneur of Indiana, is obscure but eminent scholars of spiritualism have found convincing evidence that he was the same as the medium Samuel Collins (occasionally advertised also as Samuel B. Collins) of Indiana who appeared throughout California in 1858 and 1859, demonstrating his ability have spirits untie him from whatever knots the committee might choose to tie him with. "Collins was bound with over one hundred feet of bed cord, and placed in a dark room, the doors of which were guarded by the spectators; in twenty-one minutes the ropes were thrown against the door, and the subject was free from his bonds. It was then announced that his attendant spirit would bind him with the same ropes; in thirty minutes, upon a signal being given, the door was opened and the subject was found securely bound." The journal also carried the letters of Fitzhugh Ludlow to Collins on opium addiction and its cure. Huntington Library; New York Academy of Medicine; Yale University; Indiana State Library.

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