Thank you for correcting the text in this article. Your corrections improve Papers Past searches for everyone. See the latest corrections.

This article contains searchable text which was automatically generated and may contain errors. Join the community and correct any errors you spot to help us improve Papers Past.

Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image

DRUGS IN MEDICINE

INTERESTING SURVEY

SURVIVALS FROM ANTIQUITY.

A lively controversy has been: ia progress in medical circles in London over the use of certain sedative drags of the barbiturate group, which have come into fashion and which, like many; other drugs, are criticised on one hand as dangerous and defended on the other as being thoroughly satisfactory.' The discussion prompts a medical ■ contributor to the "Daily Mail" to write ,aa interesting sketch of .the history . of drugs. , ' One of the greatest difficulties •' ia medical science today, -he r'writes, is to be found in the enonnpus and steadily increasing number 6£ remedies available for the .treatment of the sick. Not only are 'we still using more. than hajf the drugs that were common a hundred years -ago, but, since half-way through, the last century, organic chemistry- has offered us the choice of a vast number of newcompounds the medical possibilities of which" are, as yet, relatively unexplored. Several striking facts emerge • from a study of the history of drugs, among them the antiquity of many of the'remedies in common use today, ana the time it often took in the past before tk« best use was made of them. - - • Castor oil is mentioned by Herodotus in the fifth century B.C. Opium was in. use before the birth of Christ. Aloes, still used as an aperient, was prescribed in a remedy known as "Holy Bitter" 2000 years ago. Coming to more recent times, we find Cinchona bark (from -which quinine is derived) first nsed by Europeans: in 1636, when the wife of: the Spanish Viceroy of Peru was cured of the "fever" by it, though long .before this it had been-known.as a remedy-by the South American natives. - - ' FBOM FOXGLOVES. ' '. Digitalis, our most valuable' drug "ia the treatment of heart disease, is obtained from the leaf of the foxglove. It was originally applied externally as a balm. Then in the sixteenth., century it came to be used for epilepsy. It was not until 1875, when an English physician, Dr. Withering,-of Birmingham, learning its Tirtnes from-an old Shropshire woman, first applied, it-1« the cure of dropsy. - ■;. -■ •' i Many other drugs have long histories. Ipecacuanha, known since the seventeenth, century; successfully cured- the Dauphin of dysentery in Louis XlV'a reign, while sarsaparilla cured the Emperor.Charles V of the gout.. The dawn of the nineteenth century; marks the beginning of the greatest advances in our knowledge of drugs. .■ : The first achievement was the" discovery and isolation of the •'alkaloids:' 1 Pure morphine was isolated in 1816, ana about the same time came the isolation of pure strychnine, nicotine, and later of quinine and caffeine. . . * . lodine and bromine were- also-^dij-covered about this time, and the development of the "coal-tar" products that form the basis of most of the synthetic drugs as we know them today. It-is from this source that we obtained aspirin. ■-■-.- The second stage had to do ■ with anaesthetics, probably thermost important and far-reaching of all medical discoveries. ■ • In 1800 Sir Humphrey Davy suggested the possibilities of " laughing gas" when he found that by inhaling it-h» was relieved of the toothache. Faraday, was experimenting with ether, whici. haa been known in 1830 for 200 years. In 1842 ether was first administered as an anaesthetic in - a surgical' operation;_then came the first ''painless extraction" with gas by an Amerieaia dentist, ana the use of chloroform by; Simpson in Edinburgh in .1847. •- ' BLOTD FAISH. ; Not long after this Lord Lister,: tb* great surgeon, realised the value of. carbolic acid, the use of which helped to reduce the appalling mortality of • surgical operations made possible by the new anaesthetics. . The third great achievement of the nineteenth century was the birth'ana. development' of organic chemistry— particularly the synthesis,^ or up, of compounds from": simple'";'_substances, wMeh has indirectly, led t» most of our modern drugs. , . , Though alcohol was freely used/sleepproaucing drugs haa been fewand\far between until the discovery of chloial in 1869, which was soon followed by sulphonal, trional, and later bj; veronal, the forerunner of the barbiturates of todayi. Iv our age of enlightenment blind faith in. drngs as :th» be-all and end-all of medical treatment' is happily on the wane. . But it is only recently that th'e'pufclic have begun to realise that the treat, ment of disease—both mental and physical—is not merely a question of giving this or tiiat particular drng. : . ■ This new insight, however, has not deterred them from believing, and quite rightly, that until ■we can prevent disease by a reasonable and healthy mode of living -we must rely to no'small extent on drugs'as an adjunct to othar modes of .treatment. . ,

Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19340302.2.43

Bibliographic details

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 52, 2 March 1934, Page 5

Word Count
765

DRUGS IN MEDICINE Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 52, 2 March 1934, Page 5

DRUGS IN MEDICINE Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 52, 2 March 1934, Page 5

Help

Log in or create a Papers Past website account

Use your Papers Past website account to correct newspaper text.

By creating and using this account you agree to our terms of use.

Log in with RealMe®

If you’ve used a RealMe login somewhere else, you can use it here too. If you don’t already have a username and password, just click Log in and you can choose to create one.


Log in again to continue your work

Your session has expired.

Log in again with RealMe®


Alert