In “Some of your favorite household products have absurd medicinal histories,” author Eleanor Cummins discusses the historic use of favorable household items as a form of medical treatment. Cummins offers examples of these products as well as their medicinal purpose and active ingredient that persons relied upon to treat their health issue. Cummins opens her article by using an introductory statement which states that some staples and household products now stored in an individual’s fridge or cabinets, were used in “extraordinary (and often totally absurd) medicinal contexts” in the past. She continues by giving the most popular example of such products, which is Coca-Cola, a sugary soda originally marketed as a nerve tonic. Additionally, she discusses the advertisement of this drink, which contained a few milligrams of cocaine per glass, as a method for the enhancement of intellectual capacity, exhaustion relief as well as emotional management in …show more content…
And then she prepares her readers for the rest of her article by signaling that she was about to discuss “six other mini-medical histories and one dispatch from the future.” Next, Cummins discusses the marketing of 7-Up, originally named “Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda”, as a mood stabilizer. She then offers the name of a chemical compound, lithium citrate, contained in the soft drink until 1950, used to manage bipolar disorder. Cummins then listed her third example which was Lysol, an incredibly acidic product which can cause skin irritation. According to Cummins, before the legalization of birth control in 1972, women used Lysol. She goes on to explain how the acidic solution was just as corrosive on feminine parts as it would be on an individual’s hands when cleaning. Also, she states that by 1911 there were at least five fatalities due to uterine irrigation as reported by Mother
This, therefore, takes us to the most shared concerns people present about how homeopathic medicines are manufactured and of their safety. The raw materials used for various homeopathic medicines are known poisons. Samuel Hahnemann’s goal was to search for a means to treat patients less severely than the treatments used in his day, which often involved purging, leeching, bloodletting,
“Sir James Clarke’s Female Pills” and other similar products were part of a class of patent medicines targeted at women and advertised as a cure to a universe of “painful and dangerous diseases incident to the female constitution” (Fig. 5The Daily Globe 1856). They offered hope for women in search of relief from monthly discomforts. In actuality, patent medicine manufacturers were capitalizing on the increased demand for abortifacients by advertising products that restored the regularity of the monthly period. To avoid prosecution, veiled language was used to advertise their nature, which compelled women to consider them for the purpose of removing what was described as “irregularities,” “suppressions,” and “obstructions” of the menses and to deal with all causes of the cessation of menstrual flow (Fig. 5; The Daily Globe 1856; The Star of the North 1855).
In the book, A History of the World in 6 Glasses, beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and Coca-cola, all differently benefited this world we live in. Alcoholic drinks and Caffeinated drinks all medically benefited through history. For example, sailors drank grog to alleviate scurvy and doctors used wine to help sick patients. For the Caffeinated drinks, coffee was used by businessmen to stay up longer to work. It also helped clear men’s mind after they have drank too much alcohol. Coca-cola in the beginning, was also used medically. Coca-cola when it was originally advertised, was used as a cure for morphine and opium addictions. Another similarity between Alcohol and Caffeinated drinks is that each drink was the defining drink during a pivotal
While some outstanding medications, for example, cocaine had been a staple fixing in a few items, including the first incarnation of Coca Cola which was then known as Cocaine Cola and used for migraine help, there was not boundless recreational medication use. Drug utilize had a tendency to be used by people in expressions of the human experience who wished to enhance innovativeness (Schmalleger, 2009).
The way medicine was provided has changed over time. Medicine was limited during this time. The people used home remedies to try and cure many different things. Including a deadly disease that they had no idea what caused it. People affected by this disease would mix up a warm poultice of butter
The ways of the old didn’t just go away with time, today many of the same remedies can be used such as mint for stomach pain, lavender for headaches, and vinegar for wounds. In this era, doctors were expensive and only called in the most extreme of cases such as the black plague or bubonic plague. The motto of an Elizabethan was to primarily do with what you have, by treating herbs with care and treating the wounded they passed down tools for medical advancements centuries to come. (“Elizabethan Medicine and
In the mid to late 1800s, there was a multitude of medications available without prescription, popularly called patent medicines. They were purported to contain mystical cures for everything from arthritis, to erectile dysfunction, to baldness. As one advertisement for Hamlin’s Wizard Oil shows, they were often sold as cure alls; “Hamlin’s Wizard Oil, the greatest family remedy for rheumatism, neuralgia, headache, toothache, diphtheria, sore throat, lame back, sprains, bruises, corns, cramps, colic, diarrhea, and all pain, and inflammation” (Neurologica Blog). In reality, there were no
William Harvey discovered the circulatory system. Bleeding frequently was actually considered good for people's health. Doctors used drugs to make people throw up, pee in order to get rid of being sick. Chemicals and minerals were used as medicine. Any form of medicine was rarely effective. In China, powdered pearl was swallowed in order to get rid of toxins in the system, clean the liver, reduce stress and to treat sore throat. It also helped cure burns, cuts, and
John Stith Pemberton, a pharmacist and “cash-strapped morphine addict,” created Coca-Cola in 1886. He used a French wine called Vin Mariani as his product to replicate. Coca-Cola was different because it was water-based, not wine-based, and included kola nut, caffeine, coca leaf extract, and sugar. It was originally sold as a medicine, a “brain tonic” that “Cures Morphine and Opium Habits and Desire for Intoxicants.” Later broke and ill from his stomach problems and morphine addiction, Pemberton sold the patent to Coca-Cola to Asa Candler, who later officially created The Coca-Cola Company.
This case study is the story of Coca-Cola, its history and the report about one of the most fascinating stories about the company this is still regarded by many as a mysterious case: “the introduction of the new Coke”.
The perspective of the dilemma of SUDs is that it not only affects the user, but it also their family and all those exposed to them. It is not an individual problem, it is a societal problem. As the previously discussed statistics shows, substance abuse is a substantial issue in our society. Although, alcohol and numerous substances have been around and ingested in various ways throughout history, it is a fairly new epidemic. It was not until the mid-nineteenth century that we began to see new ways to use these substances, and different means to extract properties of such substances. It was in the mid-nineteenth century that morphine and codeine were first extracted from the opium poppy, cocaine was identified by chemists as the psychoactive substance of the coca leaf, and the hypodermic needle was invented. It was not until the purifications and new found transmissions of such substances that we began to experience such increased risk (DuPont, 1997).
The author introduces and mainly addresses three topics. Remedies that had little less information compared to diseases considering the time period. So Andrew Wear focuses on that latter first. Andrew Wear’s style of writing was a wide reading backed up with primary and secondary sources and also had copious footnotes. As a reminder, Wear’s period of study is 1550-1680, which he describes that one of the greatest threats in early modern world was high infant and child mortality, infection, and high mortality among the poor (the majority of the population). He also shows importance to how plant, animal, and mineral substances can be used for treatment of diseases. Although, the author elucidates the role of therapeutics in the constant battling
Because physicians believed that cocaine was a cure for heart disease, they promoted its use, and a major soft drink company Coca Cola used this drug substance in their soft drinks (Blachford, Krapp). It was not until more research was concluded and publicized that the real effects of cocaine were made public. It was determined that cocaine stimulates the central nervous system which increased the heart rate, respiration, blood pressure, and body temperature (Blachford, Krapp). Cocaine in the natural coca leaf state is not, whatsoever, addictive nor does this drug create a euphoric reaction in the user, but when chemically altered, the drug is addictive (Blachford, Krapp). In the process of using cocaine, the dopamine and serotonin receptors are disrupted. These specific receptors affect one’s mood, memory, and appetite (O’Sullivan). Also bupropion is a prescribed medication that people use as a mimic for cocaine (Koshy). Bupropion goes by the name of “poor man’s cocaine” because of the inexpensive price of $2.50 per pill and the cocaine-like high the user receives (Koshy). Again Postman’s argument proves itself true with the history that surrounds cocaine use: people were unaware of the side effects of cocaine use due to lack of knowledge about the drug. Referring to Brave New World, soma causes the people to “[embark] for lunar eternity” just as cocaine stimulates the
Once they were made these medciationsa were applied in drinks, were used as pills, washes, baths, rubs, oil ments, and purges.
This invention was later developed into the latex condom that is used today to prevent pregnancy. Not long after these makeshift condoms began being used, women also began experimenting with abortions. These were unhygienic and very dangerous procedures that often lead to death. An object similar to the condom, the diaphragm, was the next form of birth control which was invented in 1882 by Dr C Hasse. With the diaphragm being only 94% effective, abortions were still being used despite having been made illegal. In 1916 Margaret Sanger first popularized the term birth control after she began administering contraceptives illegally, her belief was that ‘the only way to change the law is to break it’. She opened a birth control clinic that was giving out condoms, diaphragms, and care for women after they received their back alley abortions. She also did research on possible forms of oral contraceptives which later lead to Frank Colton's invention of the first oral contraceptive. All of these forms of birth control as a whole are the most important inventions in the history of mankind because it prevents not only unwanted pregnancies, but also dangerous ones. Families struggling with poverty, pregnant women with health