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my source is the data in the bibliography of Dr. Jurgen Thorwald's (LIGHTLY fictionalized historical novels

Okay, my head's about to explode. YOUR SOURCE IS A GERMAN HISTORICAL NOVEL?????

e only two books of fiction that i can remember reading that have BOTH a bibliography of sources AND copious footnotes.

Read some Allen Eckert.

(in the GERMAN language edition. i do NOT own, nor have i read, the US editions)

Covering your bases in case someone has a copy? You're certainly ready with quotations from it.

your documentation of your claims, otoh, is LACKING or ABSENT in virtually every case

Documentation, you're wanting? Something that trumps a German historical novel? Let's start with Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin

"Heroin was first synthesized in 1874 by C.R. Alder Wright, a British chemist working at St. Mary's Hospital Medical School, London. He had been experimenting with combining morphine with various acids. He boiled anhydrous morphine alkaloid with acetic anhydride over a stove for several hours and produced a less potent, acetylated form of morphine. We now call it diacetylmorphine. The compound was sent to F.M. Pierce of Owens College, Manchester, for analysis. He reported the following to Wright:
Doses … were subcutaneously injected into young dogs and rabbits … with the following general results … great prostration, fear, and sleepiness speedily following the administration, the eyes being sensitive, and pupils dilated, considerable salivation being produced in dogs, and slight tendency to vomiting in some cases, but no actual emesis. Respiration was at first quickened, but subsequently reduced, and the heart's action was diminished, and rendered irregular. Marked want of coordinating power over the muscular movements, and loss of power in the pelvis and hind limbs, together with a diminution of temperature in the rectum of about 4°(rectal failure) [2]"

"Felix Hoffmann, of Bayer in Elberfeld, Germany created Heroin as a medicine 11 days after inventing Aspirin. Afraid of the possible side effects of Aspirin Bayer registered Heroin (meaning 'heroic' from the German word heroisch. It was chosen because in field studies people using the medicine felt 'heroic') as a trademark. From 1898 through to 1910 it was marketed as a non-addictive morphine substitute and cough medicine for children. As with Aspirin, Bayer lost some of its trademark rights to Heroin following World War I."

Admit, it Watie..you're on this stuff, aren't you?

"Felix Hoffmann, of Bayer in Elberfeld, Germany created Heroin as a medicine 11 days after inventing Aspirin [Aug 1987].

NC REALITY CHECK! See http://www.chemheritage.org/EducationalServices/pharm/asp/fh.htm

An application for a German patent was rejected, because in fact acetylsalicylic acid was not a new substance, having been first synthesized in 1853 by French chemist Charles Gerhardt, in impure form, and later in crystalline form by German chemist Carl J. Kraut.

But even then, it was not a new discovery, only a concentration of the existng compound:

Hoffmann was searching for a medicine to ease his father's rheumatism pains when he acetylated salicylic acid, the active principle in salves and teas made from willow bark and certain other plant materials. Since antiquity, the pain-relieving and fever-reducing properties of willow bark were well known, and in the early nineteenth century, salicylic acid was isolated from it by several chemists.