Recycled tricks? To this day, people will fall into the trap of trying to buy an easy and quick way to solve their problems.Have a kid that's out of control and unmanageable? Instead of reconsidering their diet, exercise, schooling, family life or health issues, many parents opt for the stress free solution of a pill. In 1900, a medication called Pepsin Anodyne, claimed to be able to pacify the most 'fretful child'. Invented by Dr. J.C. Faley, it contained 2.5 grains of chloral hydrate not to mention 0.1 grain of sulphate of morphine. Sound familiar? Our modern world has created a vast and profitable industry that claim similar remedies, Ritalin being one of the most popular drugs to date.
Hosletter's Celebrated Stomach Bitters was created as an anti-bilious remedy for colic constipation, a medication that comprised of 47% alcohol (later reduced to 25% after the Pure Food and Drug act 1907). Not to be out done, our modern society offers plenty of over the counter medications, all because we prefer to eat what we shouldn't rather than cutting back.
The most comical one I discovered was Plantoxine (sounds pretty medical doesn't it?), a medication that claimed to correct abnormalities of the system which create susceptibility to plant pollen, la grippe, chronic malarial disease and Hayfever. What was it made of? 100% milk sugar.
