primitives discuss quack medicines

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021153857

Oh my.

derby378 (27,073 posts)

Giving a lecture on old-timey quack medicines tomorrow

Some of the DU veterans might remember that I used to serve as President of the North Texas Skeptics before I became a Democratic precinct chair. NTS is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, so I felt the need to step down in order to avoid a conflict of interest.

Tomorrow afternoon, I'll be visiting my fellow skeptics once again and bringing part of my collection of antique medicine bottles for a little bit of skeptical show-and-tell and discussing the patent medicine industry in America.

Wish I had a picture of the bottle collection to show you - I've got Radam's Microbe Killer, Clark Stanley's Snake Oil Liniment, Aletris Cordial, a few Healey and Bigelow Kickapoo Indian medicines, and so on. Some of these bottles still contain a little of the medicine to this day, but I'm not about to try any of them.

MADem (76,510 posts)

1. What was in the bottles? Morphine, cocaine, booze, opiates?

derby378 (27,073 posts)

2. Opiates? I think the DEA would want a word with me

However, one of the bottles contains honest-to-goodness strychnine, which was used in very small doses as a stomach remedy until safer remedies like Pepto-Bismol took off.

Another bottle may contain some really dubious kerosene, camphor, and turpentine. I'm not about to uncork the bottle in order to test it, though.

I also have a few bottles of Munyon's homeopathic pills that I may or may not bring to the meeting; I'm still debating that since I've given lectures on homeopathy in the past.

MADem (76,510 posts)

4. Well, I know a lot of those old quacky meds had all kinds of stuff in 'em!

Alcohol, too!

derby378 (27,073 posts)

6. LOTS of alcohol!

That reminds me; I've got a bottle of Hostetter's Bitters I need to show off. That stuff was at least 40% alcohol.

lunasun (2,131 posts)

9. bitters good for what ails you

Just reading this now going to the cabinet and pour me a shot of some swedish kind i have
good nightcap

hifiguy (9,527 posts)

11. A lot of corn liquor and turpentine, I suspect.

Spider Jerusalem (13,931 posts)

3. One word: Radithor

after which a photograph of a corked bottle

derby378 (27,073 posts)

5. I'd love to grab a bottle - but then again, maybe not

I've heard one story of an old radium jug at an antique shop that was tested with a Geiger counter. It was so radioactive that the NRC was called, who quickly whisked the jug off to a secure location behind a lead-lined wall.

It would have to be an empty bottle for me, I'm afraid.

MADem (76,510 posts)

8. With tongs...while wearing a lead suit!!!

longship (13,037 posts)

7. Radium is very bad shit.

Not as bad as Plutonium, but really not something you want to come into contact with. Bad. Bad!

derby378 (27,073 posts)

14. I've got Hostetter's, but not Holloway's

Hostetter's Stomach Bitters clocked in at 40% alcohol. Wheeeee!

What? 

No mention of any pre-1906 Lydia Pinkham's Special Vegetable Compound for Female Complaints?

Now, it seems to me that's something that the miserable old bitch the Proud2BLibKansan primitive should use.

[obumazombie]

longship thinks radium is bad.
He certainly doesn't reference or attribute to Madame Curie.