3508
Comments (513)
sorted by:
You're viewing a single comment thread. View all comments, or full comment thread.
19
anon1011101 19 points ago +19 / -0

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!!

5
starsabove 5 points ago +5 / -0

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.

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.

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.

0
anon1011101 0 points ago +2 / -2

yep i was gonna include radium but i couldn't remember if it was radon or radium.
i'm a synthetic organic chemist with experience in medicinal chemistry, i could tell you dozens of stories about interesting "therapies" that used to be prescribed...

3
starsabove 3 points ago +3 / -0

You look at various medical practices humans have had over the millennia, even those after the Renaissance and into the modern era and its a wonder we haven't wiped ourselves out through sheer stupidity.