NP Re: propaganda [was Re: Vineland]

[davemarc]

19th century medications are a story in themselves.  I don't think they're
simply a matter of marketing.  I know I've been harping on O'Neill
recently, so I'll stay on the subject a little longer to point out that
Eugene's mom became addicted to morphine after being treated with it
following a painful birth experience in the late part of the century.  The
doctor wasn't great, but I don't think he was a complete incompetent
either; such usages were as common as they were regrettable.  Considering
that the "safe" anesthesia pioneered c.1864 wasn't all that safe (and still
isn't, in some ways), and that addictive substances like alcohol and
codeine are still in cough medicines, the origins of "Mother's Little
Helper" might have been less sinister, and more primitive and desperate,
than suggested.  Now if we're gonna talk about modern-day cigarettes and
heroin and cocaine....

davemarc
----------
> From: MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu
> 
> Vaska,
> All I know is an undocumented anecdote I picked up somewhere regarding an

> opium-laced cough syrup supposedly very popular among poor 19th c.
immigrant 
> populations suffering through the childhood TB epidemic (historians,
gotta date on this?).  
> It was called *Mother's Little Helper* and was marketed as the only
*medicine* strong 
> enough to suppress those tormenting coughing spells that must have driven
many an 
> indigent parent into madness as their infants coughed themselves to
death.  
> But what a marketing angle, eh?
>