MEDICINES ARE MERCHANDISE FOR OUR SICKNESS & THEIR PROFITS

 

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

 

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