Curing What Ails You
I ran across some interesting health factoids over the weekend in the Sacramento Bee. For example, the first Merck Manual of medical information, published in 1899, listed these “scientifically-advanced treatments” and doctor-recommended prescriptions for what ailed you:
- Arsenic - diabetes, arthritis, and asthma
- Strychnine - skin diseases and bed wetting
- Smoking tobacco - asthma
- Cocaine - chest pains of coronary artery disease
- Cannabis - insomnia
Say what? But life expectancy at the turn-of-the-century was, for men, 46 and, for women, 48. So maybe there was room for improvement. Makes you wonder what they’ll be saying in 100 years about the medicines we take today.
Doug
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Reader Comments (4)
Wow! Doctors used to prescribe this stuff? You are right. What will they be saying about the things doctors prescibe to us today in the next century?
And in those days, you have to wonder how many wayward husbands died of arthritis.
Ironic that smoking tobacco could ever have been suggested as a treatment, let alone a cure, for asthma. The relative dark ages of medicine which, a century from now, will describe today's medical practice.
I'm suffering from insomnia...