Until the passage of the first Federal narcotics laws in 1911 and the establishment of the
Food, Drug & Insecticide Administration in 1927 (it became the FDA three years later),
there was no restriction on the ingredients of nostrums or the claims made by advertisers
and no laws preventing people from buying any drugs they wished over the counter:
laudanum, opium, morphine, marijuana, cocaine and paregoric were readily available
and widely used, especially in the rural districts. The people didn't have drug addiction treatment centers available to help them like we do today.
Quackery became big business after the Civil War, and people swallowed patent medicines
(literally and figuratively) because they wanted the solace the medical profession
couldn't honestly give them - and because the new remedies were cheap and always at hand.
Between 1890 and 1910 heroin was sold as a non-addictive substitute for morphine.
It was also used to treat children suffering with a strong cough.
Metcalf's Coca Wine was one of a huge variety of wines with cocaine on the market.
Everybody used to say that it would make you happy and it would also work as a medicinal treatment.
Mariani wine (1875) was the most famous Coca wine of its time.
Pope Leo XIII used to carry one bottle with him all the time. He awarded Angelo Mariani (the producer) with a Vatican gold medal.
Produced by the Maltine Manufacturing Company of New York.
It was suggested that you should take a full glass with or after every meal. Children should only take half a glass.
A paperweight promoting C.F. Boehringer & Soehne (Mannheim, Germany).
They were proud of being the biggest producers in the world of products containing Quinine and Cocaine.
At 40% alcohol, plus 3 grains of opium per tablet, It didn't cure you... but you didn't care!
All stage actors, singers, teachers and preachers had to have them for a maximum performance. Great to 'smooth' the voice.
Very popular for children in 1885. Not only did they relieve the pain, they made the children happy!
Grove's Tasteless Chill Tonic claimed to make "children and adults as fat as pigs," in a day when farmers thought a
healthy baby should be fat. This was mixed with some combination of anise, digitalis,
senna, goldenseal, oil of cloves, and water, and many contained large proportions of opium,
morphine, or cocaine; infants became addicts from narcotic-based cough syrups, also used
to quiet crying spells.
Closely related to the patent medicines but probably a good deal less harmful was the
medicine-show man, a wagon-dwelling itinerant often seen in Westerns. The show centered
on the "medicine wagon," whose back end let down to make a platform used as a stage;
kerosene flares were lit for nighttime performances.
The medicine, almost always touted as an "Indian remedy" - a cure-all herbal concoction
originated by some fictitious Indian medicine man who possessed mystic and divine powers -
was generally in fact a simple compound made up largely of alcohol (sometimes 80 proof),
spices, root herbs, and belladonna as a painkiller, plus anything from colored sugar water
to crude oil; it was touted as a relief for colds, piles, rheumatism, cancer, and croup,
and sold for fifty cents to a dollar and up per three-ounce bottle, depending on the show,
the skill of the barker, and the gullibility of the sucker.
Disney's Movie 'Pete's Dragon' gives us a fun example Of a Medicine-show man...
Though frontier doctors bitterly opposed the medicine show (as early as 1854 one newspaper
ran an indignant letter from a local physician condemning "Indian doctors in whom credulous
females, children, and ignorant, superstitious men, have great confidence"), their diatribes
had little effect. The audience's aches and pains were beyond the doctor's ability to cure,
and the showman as a rule tried not to sell anything genuinely harmful, because he, unlike
the patent-medicine manufacturer, had direct contact with his customers and wanted to be
able to come back next year. Mostly his nostrums were laxatives, bitters, salves and liniments,
invigorating tonics (with a high alcoholic content), and harmless herbs, based on vegetables
or mineral salts; those which contained narcotics were more generally sold by mail-order or
off store shelves.
Of Course, money was the reason for their lack of common sense. Late in the century naive Americans
made an $80,000,000-a-year business of the type...
Still, people back then, as a whole, were probably a robust lot: an old saying has it that
"The cowards never started and the weak died on the way." And for all its physical perils,
the 19th century was in many ways a psychologically more healthy era to live in than our own.
Though the economy was uncertain, with bank failures and periodic nationwide "panics,"
there was little job-related stress. Up until the Civil War, many people could go through
their whole lives having no contact at all with the Federal government except for the
distribution of the mails. Children played outdoors more than they do now, keeping fit
and healthy and getting socialized, and were rarely if ever under the supervision of
adults or in organized programs that pressured them to perform rather than simply have fun.
No one had ever heard of terrorism, global warming, school shootings, date rape, or many of the other concerns that now appear every day in
the news; only a few people were familiar with the concept of communism (with a small C),
and no one had ever imagined it engulfing whole nations or threatening the peace and
security of their own.
Though alcoholism and drug addiction existed, they were for the
most part discreetly hidden, and the latter at least was rare.
Pete's Dragon is one of my all time favorites because it reminds me so much of our own
struggles with the devil on this earth and the power and love of God to us His children.
For example, in this scene the Gogans are
looking for Pete when he first ran away from them. Like the devil, they say anything
to persuade Pete to come back over to their side, but just like the devil they only
mean to do him severe harm. It is a good lesson to all us Christians not to give place
or to trust or to believe in the devil. He is the original liar and deceiver.
This next scene from Pete's Dragon is another one that hits home. The devil claims he has
the rights to us. Often we are deceived into thinking we are not good enough for God and that
the devil does own us, but God begs to differ!
Here, to me, Helen Reddy is like our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! I love her power,
strength, and conviction as she guards Pete!
Then when Elliot the dragon intervenes it is like the full power from God to the rescue!
The devil is quickly put in his place. Another good lesson to put our trust into God and our Lord Jesus Christ...
This last one from Pete's Dragon is again one of my favorites. It makes me think
of how loving and tender our God and Father is. He gives us angels to be there
for us during our most trying times until like in this Disney story, they are
no longer needed to watch over and care for us.
"Be not forgetful to entertain strangers:
for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."
~ Hebrews 13:2
Angels can appear in any shape they choose Even Pete's Dragon Shapes :)
"Ye are of God, little children, And have overcome them:
Because greater is he that is in you, Than he that is in the world.
~ 1 John 4:4
For those of you who Want More FUN - Visit The Shangy Fun List! Variety is the
spice of life! The Shangy Fun List is an ezine packed full of Poems, Inspirational and
Heart Warming Stories. Jokes from G to slightly R, and Anything else that just
might make you SMILE! Join In The Free FUN!! ... :)
Pete's Dragon is one of my all time favorites because it reminds me so much of our own
struggles with the devil on this earth and the power and love of God to us His children.
-To SHANGRALA-
