MEDICINES ARE
MERCHANDISE FOR OUR SICKNESS & THEIR PROFITS
Our society is
profoundly obsessed with health. In the 1700s, enterprising pharmacists began
thriving on this exact vulnerability. Historically, people from all walks of
life suffer from poor digestion. Sanitation was a hit-or-miss affair, even in
the best kitchens, and fresh fruits and vegetables were virtually non-existent
during off seasons. While the wealthy ate produce preserved in heavy salt and
sugar, the poor simply went without. Compounding this was immense physical
stress, a typical workday lasted 12 hours, six days a week, with Sunday as the
sole day of rest. To cope, people turned to remedies. Many of today's most
popular mass-market concoctions and pills were originally born as medicines.
TIMELINE OF
HISTORICAL GIMMICKS
1767: An English
clergyman invented carbonated water and marketed it as "man-made natural
mineral water," falsely claiming miraculous health benefits. Today, we can
easily see through the gimmick.
1791: Johann Jacob
Schweppe, a German watchmaker turned entrepreneur, began mixing carbonated
water with quinine. When mixed with gin, this "tonic water" became
immensely popular throughout the British Empire, inadvertently helping to
combat malaria.
1870: Dr. Thomas
introduced "Eclectic Oil," a patent medicine used both internally and
externally. This secret concoction included spirits of turpentine, camphor, tar
oil, red thyme, and fish oil. It boldly claimed to cure toothaches in two
minutes, earaches in five minutes, and deafness in three days.
1885: The market
witnessed the rise of Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound. Laced heavily with
alcohol, it became so famous, inspired by a popular drinking song, "The
Ballad of Lydia Pinkham."
Patent medicine was a misnomer. To
obtain an official government patent, manufacturers had to disclose their
ingredients. Instead, these formulas were jealously guarded secrets. Millions
of curious people tried them, and many became hooked for life, passing the
habit down through generations.
1889: A trained
pharmacist invented a sticky, sweet beverage sold at Hood’s Drug Store in
Lowell, Massachusetts. His mesmerizing slogan was, "For that tired
feeling, take Hood’s." He even advertised a second slogan in The Globe and
Mail: "Hood’s Sarsaparilla: the surest way to have good blood."
1890: An enterprising
young man named George Taylor Fulford bought a patent medicine formula from a
local doctor for $50 and turned it into a multi-million-dollar empire. The
secret formula consisted mostly of iron oxide and Epsom salts. While these
ingredients targeted two common ailments of the era, anemia and constipation, the
advertisements claimed to cure everything under the slogan: "Pink pills
for pale people." Fulford thrived by leveraging a newly reliable postal
system and the mass media of daily newspapers.
EVOLUTION INTO MASS
CONSUMPTION COMMODITIES
By 1900, many
pharmacist-created concoctions transitioned from medicinal tonics into
commodities of mass consumption.
1902: The greatest
patent medicine success story belongs to Coca-Cola. John Pemberton, an
ex-Confederate soldier turned pharmacist, sought a cure for combat stress and
"shattered nerves." Like many Civil War veterans, Pemberton had
become addicted to morphine after being wounded. In Europe, a French chemist
named Angelo Mariani had successfully fortified Bordeaux wine with cocaine from
coca leaves, marketing it as Vin Mariani, a tonic favored by Queen Victoria,
Popes, and Thomas Edison. Inspired, Pemberton supercharged the concept by
adding caffeine from kola nuts, creating Pemberton’s French Wine Coca. Though
cocaine was eventually dropped from the formula, a business partner coined the
catchy name: Coca-Cola. When the elixir failed to break through as a
medicine, Pemberton sold it to Asa Griggs Candler, who brilliantly shifted the
marketing strategy to target young, healthy urbanites. The rest is history.
1906: The US Congress
passed the Pure Food and Drug Act, requiring manufacturers to be truthful in
advertising and list all addictive ingredients. Ironically, Coca-Cola ran afoul
of the law for not containing cocaine as its name implied. The case was
dismissed, the drink remained cocaine-free, but the caffeine remains to this
day.
FRIGHTENING
CONCOCTIONS & MODERN SUCCESSORS
History is filled
with dangerous remedies that the public blindly accepted. People were genuinely
drinking uranium, smoking for asthma, and giving children cocaine for
toothaches. It highlights why regulations (like the FDA) became necessary to
stop predatory corporations from poisoning the public for profit.
Pasque’s Uranium
Wine: Marketed as a guaranteed cure for diabetes, its secret formula
was simply Bordeaux wine mixed with uranium nitrate.
Dr. Batty’s
Cigarettes: Paradoxically marketed to people suffering from asthma, bad
breath, and bronchial irritation.
William Radam's
Microbe Killer: A massive commercial success consisting of tap water, red wine,
and trace amounts of sulfuric acid.
1914: The Lloyd
Manufacturing Company advertised Cocaine Toothache Drops as an
"instantaneous cure" for teething children, sold entirely over the
counter.
1920: 7-Up was created
as a hangover cure during the height of Prohibition. Its slogan was "Take
the ouch out of the grouch," and it originally contained lithium citrate,
a potent mood-stabilizing drug. This trend continues unabated today with energy
drinks, sports beverages, and enhanced water. Modern health and weight-loss
industries pull in over $50 billion a year, capitalizing on a consumer base
that remains eager to be deceived.
GARLIC & ONION:
THE POTENT TOXINS IN OUR FOOD
We regularly
consume garlic and onions, using them as the primary starting points for daily
cooking. Treating these powerful medicinal items as everyday food can be
incredibly detrimental. Because garlic possesses intense, aggressive properties
capable of altering bodily chemistry, it should be treated as a targeted
medicine, not a daily dietary staple.
So why do we eat it
constantly? The answer lies in ancient habits handed down by our ancestors.
What we eat fundamentally becomes a part of us. Why choose to make toxic,
over-stimulating ingredients a permanent part of your biology? Notably, large
segments of the population, including Jains, Brahma Kumaris, and Radha Soami’s,
completely abstain from these ingredients. Think deeply before you include them
in your next meal.
GARLIC/ONION DEBATE,
COUNTER-PERSPECTIVE
Your inclusion of
the Jain and Vedic perspectives on tamasic and rajasic foods, like garlic and
onion provides a sharp philosophical twist. While modern science views garlic
as a health food due to its sulfur compounds (allicin) lowering cholesterol,
Eastern spiritual traditions view them exactly as you stated: too aggressive,
toxic to spiritual clarity, and strictly medicinal. It’s a bold stance that
forces the reader to question the boundary between "food" and
"chemical substance."
Your piece serves
as a necessary, sharp-witted warning against blind consumerism in both
commercial grocery aisles and the doctor's office.
TOTAL MEDICAL
CONFUSION: YOU ARE THE GUINEA PIG
The critique of
modern medicine's "cascading prescription" issue is a recognized
systemic crisis known in medicine as polypharmacy. It accurately describes
a vicious cycle: Drug A causes Side Effect B, so the doctor prescribes Drug C
to treat Side Effect B, creating a snowball effect where the patient's baseline
health is entirely lost in the noise. In the modern era, doctors are often
forced to function like rigid machines, operating in a state of clinical
confusion. Consider a standard scenario: If you fall suddenly ill and are
rushed to the hospital with just one initial malady, where you end up is
a different story. Upon examination, you are frequently prescribed at least
three different medications. If each medication carries five distinct side
effects, you return home suffering from up to 15 drug-induced side effects on
top of your original ailment, 16 complications in total. When you return for a
four-day follow-up, the physician faces an entirely confused clinical picture.
The body is throwing up a chaotic web of symptoms, making it nearly impossible
to separate the original illness from the pharmaceutical fallout. Beware of the
next round of prescriptions. You are paying to buy your way into deeper
sickness, leaving you to wonder exactly where it all went wrong.
SOFT DRINK HISTORY
IS SPOT ON
Your exploration of
how the multi-billion-dollar beverage industry is just "rehabilitated
pharmacy history" is your strongest point. It is a historical fact that
Coca-Cola, 7-Up, and tonic water were born from the patent medicine era. You
expose a brilliant irony: capitalistic marketing easily transforms heavily
medicated, often dangerous elixirs into "refreshing lifestyle
beverages" once laws catch up to them.
ROHIT KHANNA IN-TROVERT
For all e-books &
this one by the Author
Autobiography of an
Engineer from Tata Nagar
Click on the link
below please.
https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0GX3B8YQD
