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Proud Mary

Sat Mar 27 2010, 04:01PM

Registered Member #543 Joined: Tue Feb 20 2007, 04:26PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4992

The little blue pills that sent Abraham Lincoln into a rage

The Blue Mass pills taken as antidepressants by Abraham Lincoln contained dangerously high levels of mercury likely to have caused his notoriously wild temper, scientists have found.

By Heidi Blake
BBC Science News
23 Mar 2010

The 16th President of the United States took the pills in the 1850s to alleviate what one contemporary described as the â€œcave of gloomâ€ in which he lived.

But researchers who analysed a recently unearthed sample of the medicine discovered it contained up to 120 times the acceptable daily intake of mercury.

Scientists at the Royal Society of Chemistry, where the tests were carried out, believe the high mercury content in the pills is what caused Lincolnâ€™s famous verbal and physical rages.

On one occasion the President became so incensed that he grabbed a former aide and shook him â€œuntil his teeth chatteredâ€.

One contemporary describe his face in anger as â€œlurid with majestic and terrifying wrathâ€.

Blue Mass pills were used widely and often ineffectually in the 19th Century as a cure for ailments including toothache, constipation, childbirth pains and depression.

Mercury is highly poisonous, and symptoms of toxicity include nausea, vomiting, dehydration and diarrhoea â€“ a well as a violent temper.

Lincoln decided to abandon the pills at the outset of the American Civil War in 1861 because they â€œmade him crossâ€.

He became renowned during the conflict for his calmness under pressure.

MinorityCarrier

Sun Mar 28 2010, 03:04AM

Registered Member #2123 Joined: Sat May 16 2009, 03:10AM
Location: Bend, Oregon
Posts: 312

Highly toxic quackery abounded in this country for quite awhile after that. I remember a handbill reproduction extolling the benefits of eating tapeworm eggs to lose weight, and for Radithor Elixir, the radium-containing beverage.

Wonder what Big Pharma is up to these days.

HV Enthusiast

Sun Mar 28 2010, 11:54AM

Registered Member #15 Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 01:11PM
Location:
Posts: 3068

MinorityCarrier wrote ...

Highly toxic quackery abounded in this country for quite awhile after that. I remember a handbill reproduction extolling the benefits of eating tapeworm eggs to lose weight, and for Radithor Elixir, the radium-containing beverage.

Wonder what Big Pharma is up to these days.

And it still doesn't happen today?

Hundreds of years from now, people are going to view radiation therapy and chemotherapy in the same fashion.

Proud Mary

Sun Mar 28 2010, 12:43PM

Registered Member #543 Joined: Tue Feb 20 2007, 04:26PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4992

I was once given a mini-tour of the National Radiological Protection Board's 'black' museum, which contained all manner of quack products and health gimmicks from the first half of the last century.

Only the astronomically high price of radium saved the worried well from grievous injury. With a tonne of pitchblende realizing only 100 - 200mg Ra, it's unsurprising that none of the radium health gimmicks in the NRPB museum had any measurable radioactivity at all.

Bored Chemist

Sun Mar 28 2010, 01:19PM

Registered Member #193 Joined: Fri Feb 17 2006, 07:04AM
Location: sheffield
Posts: 1022

EastVoltResearch wrote ...

And it still doesn't happen today?

Hundreds of years from now, people are going to view radiation therapy and chemotherapy in the same fashion.

In a hundred years they will still have the data that says that while a bit crude and certainly having more side effects than most forms of treatment, both radiation therapy and chemotherapy work.
The elixir of radium didn't work.
That's a difference and the difference is called science.

HV Enthusiast

Sun Mar 28 2010, 01:53PM

Registered Member #15 Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 01:11PM
Location:
Posts: 3068

Bored Chemist wrote ...

EastVoltResearch wrote ...

And it still doesn't happen today?

Hundreds of years from now, people are going to view radiation therapy and chemotherapy in the same fashion.

Yes, you are correct. I would agree it doesn't fit into the true "medical quackery category. . . . " but

Regardless whether they work or not, people are still going to look back and be shocked just as much as we are when we look at how ancient civilizations performed primitive skull surgery called trepanning. Yes, scientific evidence does show trepanning was effective in many cases, and its still used today, albeit using much more advanced tools and procedures, but none-the-less, the shock value will be the same to future civilizations.

Plus, radiation therapy and chemotherapy today still really isn't that scientific. Treatment in the majority is still done empirically, and doctors / scientists still don't have a firm handle on how one treatment will work on a specific cancer/disease other than statistical data provided through empirical studies.

Its still hit-or-miss at best today.

MinorityCarrier

Mon Mar 29 2010, 05:11AM

Registered Member #2123 Joined: Sat May 16 2009, 03:10AM
Location: Bend, Oregon
Posts: 312

I remember seeing a photo of a pre-Columbian skull (Mayan?) with three trephinations, two showed skull bone regrowth healing, but the third apparently was fatal, and it was the only one of the three that cut across a skull bone suture.

At least most todays medical practice are rooted in some sort of extensive research. Up until the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 started to be enforced, anyone could mix up who-knows-what and peddle it as medicine.

There's a really good article in the latest Science News magazine dealing with misapplication of statistics in medical research that lends some credibility to your "hit and miss" assertion.

Steve Conner

Mon Mar 29 2010, 04:19PM

Registered Member #30 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706

Radiation therapy and chemotherapy treat cancer in the same way that you can sometimes "fix" a TV by hitting it.

Radithor mineral water really was radioactive and caused at least one high-profile death.

Bored Chemist

Mon Mar 29 2010, 08:21PM

Registered Member #193 Joined: Fri Feb 17 2006, 07:04AM
Location: sheffield
Posts: 1022

I think you underestimate the work that has gone into the development of chemotherapy.

The only research that went into things like the Radiothor was "Are people prepared to pay for this product?"

Proud Mary

Mon Mar 29 2010, 08:47PM

Registered Member #543 Joined: Tue Feb 20 2007, 04:26PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4992

There are illustrations of numerous radium quack products here:

I would not, however, confuse this hokum with sincere and well-meant attempts to destroy tumours with radium pellets &c.

Here is an extremely dodgy looking journal abstract, from as recently as 2004, which appears to recommend
what it calls 'radon therapy'

International Journal of Low Radiation
Issue: Volume 1, Number 3 / 2004
Pages: 333 - 357
URL: Linking Options

One century of radon therapy

Klaus Becker
Vice-President, Radiation Science & Health, Boothstr 27, D-12207 Berlin, Germany

Abstract:

Supplementing a recent review, "Health effects of high radon environments in Central Europe: another test for the HLNT hypothesis", this review of medical radon applications (in particular for the treatment of painful degenerative joint and spine diseases) covers mainly the first century of large-scale use and scientific studies on this subject since the discovery of radon. Most of the studies and experiences originated in Europe, in particular Germany, Austria, and the former USSR. They have in common that they are not well known in the anglophonic scientific literature, where radon therapy is still frequently considered a placebo-type "traditional medicine", and not be compared with the drugs such as non-steroid antirheumatics. However, based on the substantial experiences as reflected in more than one thousand papers, mostly in peer-reviewed scientific journals, on this subject, radon therapy by inhalation or baths has been established as an evidence-based effective treatment not only by empirical experience in different times and cultures, but also in randomised clinical double-blind studies. It should be further explored as an effective alternative to the use of pharmaca. Unlike radon, drugs cause serious side effects, with more than ten thousand annual casualties. The benefits in the adequate use of low-dose radon exposures far exceed the hypothetical lung cancer risk attributed to the inhalation of low radon concentrations. Further research could provide better understanding of the mechanism of the stimulating radon effects on the body's defence systems.

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