Embalming

[35th MA InfRegt]

They pretty much still were in 1910.

https://archive.carnegiefoundation.org/publications/pdfs/elibrary/Carnegie_Flexner_Report.pdf

Yes, I am familiar with the Flexner Report and the positive changes it led to in the medical profession. Ron Chernow 's biography of John D. Rockefeller spends a few pages on the subject. Rockefeller's own father had been a peddler of quack medicines, and old John himself was something of a believer in homeopathic and osteopathic medicine, but his Foundation did good work in funding the implementation of the Flexner Report's recommendations.

 

[NH Civil War Gal]

Sadly, men and women using mercuric chloride to fight STDs often died from the treatment. In the case of women, using it as a d o u c h e, especially if they inserted a whole tablet into the vagina, trying to kill the infection often led to death within six days due to renal failure.

 

[NH Civil War Gal]

With men the doctor would either use a metal syringe or a fancy rubber d o u c h e And feed it up through the urethra. The dose makes the poison so depending on how much a man was exposed to internally, they also had a chance to die from renal failure.

 

[rebelatsea]

I didn't know d-o-u-c-h-e was a bad word!

On another forum , the algorithm refused my post because it thought s***w - the twirly bit on the end of a ship was obscene - you couldn't make ie up.

 

[gary]

They pretty much still were in 1910.

https://archive.carnegiefoundation.org/publications/pdfs/elibrary/Carnegie_Flexner_Report.pdf

And even today. Iatrogenic deaths still happen. Remdsevir, which was part of the treatment protocol for a recent disease, also causes renal failure so they renamed it veklury. Same poison, new name and still administered today.

We've gone full circle.

 

[35th MA InfRegt]

On another forum , the algorithm refused my post because it thought s***w - the twirly bit on the end of a ship was obscene - you couldn't make ie up.

The forum does have some odd choices for word censorship but I can live with it. Good guest in someone else's home and all that.

 

[NH Civil War Gal]

This was what I was trying to find yesterday:

"Teething powders containing calomel, also known as mercurous chloride, was sold until 1948; it caused a condition called pink disease in babies: icy, swollen, red, and intensely itchy hands and feet."

I can't imagine the toxic mercury buildup in their little renal system and/or how it affected them later.


And here is a doctor's d-o-u-c-h-i-n-g machine. Mercury chloride was a known antiseptic, but still…. I don't really see how you could sterilize that thing between patients

 

[gary]

I can't imagine how a velvet lined tool books could be considered sterile either (the same may be said of those surgeon kits with saw, scalpals and probes).

 

[Library Lady]

And even today. Iatrogenic deaths still happen. Remdsevir, which was part of the treatment protocol for a recent disease, also causes renal failure so they renamed it veklury. Same poison, new name and still administered today.

We've gone full circle.

Veklury is the trade/proprietary name for the generic remdsevir. Remdsevir was originally developed to treat hepatitis C and then investigated for use against other viruses, including COVID where it proved efficacious.

All drugs have side effects, some of them severe. If you take too much Tylenol (acetaminophen), and especially if you drink too much alcohol while taking it, you'll rot your liver and need a liver transplant to survive. If you take too much Advil (ibuprophen), you'll rot your kidneys and end up on dialysis or with a transplant. Both of those drugs are considered safe enough, if used correctly, for the vast majority of patients to allow purchase over the counter. It's important to read the warnings on the box or the paper inside, to discuss medication use with your doctor and to report side effects to the FDA. This surveillance is the stage IV clinical trial that all manufacturers are supposed to be doing.

If you want to go around in a circle, there's thalidomide. It was developed in the 1950s and used as an antinauseant for morning sickness in the 1950s and 1960s but was found to cause severe birth defects, particularly limb malformations. It was removed from the market in the US, and the FDA was very proud of that. It has since been found to be an efficacious treatment for multiple myeloma, a blood cancer. There was a real struggle in the late 1990s and early 2000s to get it reapproved for that indication. It is currently an approved treatment, but prescription is stringently monitored through a special program. The trade/proprietary name is Thalomid.

 

[gary]

Remdsevir was originally developed to treat hepatitis C and then investigated for use against other viruses, including COVID where it proved efficacious.

Dead people certainly don't have to worry about Covid anymore!

Repurposing medicine is just another way to keep the profit stream continuing. I once complained about one ailment and my doctor prescirbed somehting that was a psych med but isn't used for psych treatment anymore. I took the script to the pharmacist and got me the printout and after reading it, tossed the prescription. Most people don't know that chemotherapy's origin was mustard gas which was found to reduce white blood count and lymp nodes. Let's use it for cancer treatment! Yay!

Better living through modern medicine, science is your friend, the atom is your friend. I remember watching those "educational" films in school. I suppose the hippocratic oath, Do No Harm, has modernly been replaced with, A Patient Cured is Customer Lost.

Those red pills/blue pills the soldiers and Abe swallowed:

The pills were created by mixing mercury (often as calomel or elemental mercury) with licorice root, rosewater, honey, sugar, and dead rose petals, then rolled into pills using a mortar and pestle.

What do Civil War re-enactor surgeons dispense? Almond M&Ms?