A Look Back at Old-Time Medicines
Antique medicines contained
everything from arsenic to opium -- and promised instant cures.
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD
WebMD
Archive
Pity the poor Victorian-era family whose bottle of Mrs. Winslow's
Soothing Syrup ran dry. It was touted as an indispensable aid to quiet bawling
babies and teething tots, and it packed a wallop of an
ingredient: morphine.
Today, no one would dream
of calming an infant
with morphine, but the museum of medicine is littered with such discarded
remedies. Some were fanciful potions that quacks concocted to make a buck,
while others were legitimate -- even revered -- treatments that eventually
yielded to more enlightened science.
For example, opium
suffers a tainted reputation these days. But doctors have favored it throughout
history, especially to control coughing
and diarrhea.
"It was regarded as an all-purpose drug. One physician
called it 'God's own medicine,'" says James C. Whorton, PhD, a medical
historian and professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine.
'Legitimate' Medicine of an Earlier Era
Doctors used arsenic and mercury to treat syphilis before the introduction of penicillin
in the 1940s.
Cocaine
drops for toothache
came on the market after doctors discovered its pain-relieving qualities. One
Belgian company even promoted cocaine throat lozenges as "indispensable
for singers, teachers and orators." Dentists and surgeons also used
cocaine as an anesthetic.
While doctors of the late 1800s considered these drugs
legitimate, a whole range of shady patent medicines, sometimes called
"nostrums," also flourished during that period.
Traveling Medicine Shows
People bought nostrums from traveling medicine shows, and the
cures beckoned boldly from billboards and newspaper and magazine ads. "You
couldn't get away from them," Whorton says. "They were
inescapable."
Many nostrums targeted vague "female complaints." The
delicate dames of yore didn't mention menstrual cramps
and hot flashes in polite company. But they were lining
up to buy Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound, one of the most popular
women's remedies of the time.
Plenty of other patent medicines flooded the American landscape,
according to a history posted on the web site of the FDA. They included: Fatoff
Obesity Cream, Make-Man Tablets, and Antimorbific Liver
and Kidney
Medicine. Also touted for "weak hearts, weak blood,
weak nerves" was a product called Anglo-American Heart
Remedy. And Dr. Bonker's Celebrated Egyptian Oil was available for "colic, cramps in the stomach
and bowels, and cholera."
Another classic: Mack Mahon the Rattle Snake Oil King's Liniment
for Rheumatism and Catarrh. Catarrh? Not as weird as it sounds. Just an
old-fashioned way of saying congestion -- the kind that comes with the common cold.
Good for All That Ails You
Some patent medicines simply took a scattershot approach. In
1862, Mixer's Cancer
and Scrofula Syrup claimed to treat "Cancer, Tumors, Erysipelas,
Abscesses, Ulcers,
Fever Sores, Goiter,
Catarrh, Salt Rheum, Scald Head, Piles, Rheumatism, and ALL BLOOD
DISEASES." [sic]
Others favored open-ended labeling. Cerralgine Food of the Brain boasted of
being "a safe cure for Headache,
Neuralgia, Nervousness, Insomnia,
Etc."
Hucksters didn't just limit themselves to elixirs and pills. They
also invented a dizzying array of devices, such as electric insoles and magic
shoes, to cure sore
feet and crippling conditions.
Consider, too, the Health Jolting Chair of the 1880s. It
resembled a garden-variety armchair--only rigged with springs and levers. Its
advertising promised that the chair would give "efficient exercise to the
essentially important nutritive organs of the body."
According to the manufacturer, all that jiggling and jolting was
essential for "millions of human beings who may be living sedentary lives
through choice or necessity." The chair was, "For certain classes of
invalids a veritable Treasure-Trove." [sic]
End of an Era
The golden age of patent medicines ended in the early 1900s,
notes the FDA web site, when muckraking journalists wrote exposés and the
federal government cracked down with new legislation to prohibit adulteration
or misbranding of foods and drugs, as well as false advertising.
Also, as the state of legitimate medicine evolved, new cures
replaced the old. When doctors began treating syphilis with penicillin, a grateful generation was
spared the toxic effects of arsenic and mercury, including inflammation of the
gums, destruction of the teeth and
jaws, and organ damage.
Opium and other addictive drugs also fell by the wayside once
scientists realized their pitfalls. Novocain replaced its predecessor, cocaine,
as an anesthetic.
Looking Ahead
No doubt, more medical advances on the horizon will make some of
today's medicines outdated. So perhaps it's wise to avoid smugness.
After all, will sophisticated new cancer
treatments make today's harsh chemotherapy
agents look like the arsenic and mercury of the past? "I'm sure people
will wonder why we put up with it," Whorton says.
Will future generations be aghast that that we pumped people's
foreheads full of Botox?
"I think it's pretty strange now," Whorton adds. "I don't think
we have to wait."
And in the year 2250, will folks be chortling over our antiquated
Internet, purveyor of fad diets,
bust developers, male enhancers, and overnight baldness cures?
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