People used to take arsenic, mercury, and all other types of poison like strychnine to treat certain ailments. Just because scientists thought something was "the best" at one time doesn't mean it will never be improved!!

Shit man, a marathon runner in the 1904 Olympics was given strychnine and brandy.

• https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-1904-olympic-marathon-may-have-been-the-strangest-ever-14910747/

Hicks, one of the early American favorites, came under the care of a two-man support crew at the 10-mile mark. He begged them for a drink but they refused, instead sponging out his mouth with warm distilled water. Seven miles from the finish, his handlers fed him a concoction of strychnine and egg whites—the first recorded instance of drug use in the modern Olympics. Strychnine, in small doses, was commonly used a stimulant, and at the time there were no rules about performance-enhancing drugs. Hicks’ team also carried a flask of French brandy but decided to withhold it until they could gauge the runner’s condition.

There was also the whole 'Radithor' debacle . . . radium infused water as a health drink.

• https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/the-blessings-of-radium-water-made-his-head-disintegrate-3ac052cb8620
• https://www.gildshire.com/people-in-the-1920s-drank-water-with-radium-it-didnt-end-well/

Within two years, Eben Byers was dead. His jaw had rotted off, and he had anemia and a brain abscess to boot. He was so radioactive, he was buried in a lead-lined coffin.

There's some pictures of Eben Byers floating around . . . they're more graphic than the Radium Girls.