“Well if the cocaine and heroin doesn’t work, let’s take a step back and give you some booze.”
~Jesus, Doc, you’re gonna make me get all weepy here. You’re the best, man.
As we’ve stated on several occasions, medicine in the late 19th century and early 20th century was basically one extended game of “I bet you I can get this guy to stick this in his mouth.” And even then, mouth if you were lucky. American doctors back then treated the flu the same way European Immigrants treat a rave- they pop in some ecstasy cut with battery acid, put in a pacifier to stop them from grinding their teeth, and rub up against velvet walls for a while. Plus, everyone in the medicine field looked like this.
Don’t let that beautiful mustache fool you, this kid was twelve years old. He’s like an olde tyme Doogie Howser. Goddamn it this era was awesome. Doctors tried to fix people the same way blind people try to fix cars- with awkward groping and a surprising amount of jammed fingers. Medicine was just as insane, since even if you excluded all the straight up hard drugs, most medicine looked like it should be drunk from a paper bag by the homeless person on your bus.
In fact, most of it looks…well, looks like something you’d take to suddenly turn into to homeless person on a bus. Either way, we’re here to salute this phenomenon by showing you even more deliciously deadly medications from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
We don’t know what any of those words mean, but we’re pretty sure it’s all Latin for “straight up poison.”
America Fun Fact of the Day 