Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Opium

Episode Date: July 19, 2013

Welcome to Sawbones, where Dr. Sydnee McElroy and her husband Justin McElroy take you on a whimsical tour of the dumb ways in which we've tried to fix people. This week: We give opium to a baby. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers (http://thetaxpayers.net)

Saw bones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, Tommy is about to books. One, two, one, two, three, four. We came across a pharmacy with a toy and that's lost it out. We pushed on through the broken glass and had ourselves a look around.

Come that essence, come that essence, the escalant macaque for the mouth Hi everybody Welcome to psa bones The marital tour of Meta misguided Medical tour of misguided medicine whatever I'm just Maccora Justin Yeah, yeah, introduce yourself. I'm Sydney Maccora what's wrong with you?? Oh, God it's nothing. It's this darn Baby no matter what I do wait. Where did you get a baby now? It's our fictional Intro-conceit baby. Okay, this darn baby just won't stop crying

Well, what what have you tried so far? Ignoring it. Okay, not a great start. Let me keep on. Put my finger in its mouth. Okay, that's not recommended. Hey, the Saul. What do you think is, so you think the baby's teething? Yeah, that's my thought.

I think the baby is having some teething issues. I'm hoping if you put your finger in its mouth and you... No, I had an in game, for sure. Okay. You didn't just think that he or she, I can't tell the gender of this baby was hungry. No, no, no. I think the baby is teething. I think that's central to sort of the problem I'm having.

Well, you know, I am a physician. Maybe I could suggest something. You're saying I should have turned you first in the care and treatment of our fictional intricacy, baby. Well, always. Okay, fair enough. What do you got?

What do you suggest? Have you considered Dr. Farne's teething syrup? Dr. Farne's teething syrup, do tell. Dr. Farne's teething syrup do tell. Dr. Farne's teething syrup is a revolutionary new formula that includes the three main things you definitely, definitely want to give babies. Hit me. Milk?

No. Tinder loving care? Nope, not that either. Plenty of oxygen. Oh, come on. Alcohol, morphine, and chloroform. Oh, no That doesn't sound to me a non doctor like a great blend for baby. That's exactly what babies need Not just for teething the uses are practically endless. Does your baby have a cold?

No, but what if what if he did? Oh, he won't now Does your baby have diarrhea? He might. Perhaps, Collick. All those things. I know that doctor says that your baby doesn't have worms, but your doctor is probably wrong. Your baby has worms.

You're saying Dr. Farney's teething syrup is the solution. It's the solution to everything. It's the cure all. You said it's revolutionary and new. How recently was this brought to market? This was like the 1850s about. Great.

And you should just dose it until you get the effect you desire. So usually that's sleeping. A good, hard sleep. And quiet. Really quiet. Mommy and daddy need some quiet time. Sydney, I know alcohol, I know chloroform, but I want to know more about morphine. Well, Justin, you've come to the right place.

I have my though. So let's start back before morphine though. Okay. Because morphine's something everybody's heard of. Everybody's got some morphine. Oh right. Everybody's got morphine. Everybody's. Because morphine's something everybody's heard of. Everybody's got some morphine. Oh right, everybody's got morphine. Everybody's got some morphine kicking around. No, let's go way back.

Let's get in the way way back machines, the way back machine, the time machine, I don't remember. That you have. That I have. And let's go back to 3400, that's the year I want to go to. BC. Okay. We're to jump it all over time. It's very historic. Sorry. I'm taking you back to the Poppy Fields of Mesopotamia.

It's beautiful here. Isn't it? Thank you for whisking me away. Take a deep breath. Well, not too deep. Why not? Because I want you to take another one afterwards. Okay. too deep. Why not? Because I want you to take another one afterwards. Okay. So, so this far back people were cultivating poppies. And because they were beautiful. They were beautiful and because you could smoke them. Oh really? They, they just discovered that, huh? Well, that, yeah, they would like heat them up and then inhale them. I bet smoke. I mean, it's had them on fire. I guess primitive man was basically just smoking anything

you can just hands on. Pretty much, and you could eat them. Oh, great. Do they have the same effects? Well, they called that they were like the flowers of joy. Oh, fun. So you can imagine that, yes, they had the same effects. I know I'm sure there was a nice pomello high. But there was no medical use of opium at this time.

This is purely just funsies. Okay. Just good times. Just party. That is until 460 BC. So we're jumping forward, way, way forward, but then also way, way back still.

Still back, but more, let's back, but not as back. That's when you remember Hippocrates. Sure, right. He, uh, yeah, for sure bleeding. So when we talked about Hippocrates, well, he wrote an oath to, Oh, that writes right, the Hippocratic oath.

That guy, that guy, do no harms and stuff. And stuff, do you know harm and stuff? That's what I, there was more to it, but. So Hippocrates, 460 BC, what did BC, what did he, what did he drop on us? So, he was the first one to recognize that there were some medical uses for opium. And it's still opium at this point. We're not talking morphine. And he began to recommend that people use it for pain.

Women should use it for their various diseases. Diseases of women. Meaning, you know, when women aren't doing what? You tell them? Oh, okay, not listening. When they're hysterical. Because they're uteruses or moving all around inside their bodies and making them crazy. Man, those are simpler times, huh? That's where hysteria comes from. Did you know that Justin? I did not see me. Yeah, it was the theory that when women were misbehaving that their uteruses were just roaming around on there making them go crazy This is a portion not medically accurate. No, no, this isn't true. As far as you know

They also used it as a stiptic which is something that that an anti-hemorrhagic stops bleeding. Okay. And that works like it wasn't a fake face. No, I don't know why that would work exactly. Okay, good. But they tried. But it was also used for pain, which it probably did work for. Sure. So that's fair.

For many, many years after that, it's mainly used occasionally for pain, but really still recreational purposes. Until 1527. So, 2000 years, just kicking around. Yeah, some people might make up like, I really gotta take that man because my elbow hurts. My ancient elbow. My ancient elbow is from this rock that I've been carrying this mummy pounding on

Don't appear me really takes it out of you the other day. I like a nice cold opium Pass the poppy scheme of sub-e. It's time to unwind. I don't even know where you are when you are I'm gonna I'm doing a TV commercial agent Egypt Sydney get the net when you are. I'm doing a TV commercial age in Egypt, Sydney. Get the nap. So 1527, OPM is reintroduced. Only now it's called london. Okay, same, I mean, is there a difference between OPM and london? London is like a, it's like a tincture of OPM basically. It's a syrup or a mixture of opium with liquid to produce like a syrup.

Okay. So a liquid now, usually mixed with, well, and I should say, it usually is a liquid form is what we think of lodenum. There were also pills, but mainly it was just alcohol and opium. Delicious. They also made pills, these tiny little black pills that they called stones of immortality. And those were made out of opium delicious. They also made pills these tiny little black pills that they called stones of immortality and

Those are made out of opium and citrus juice and gold of course you got to put gold in there And then so healthy right and then sometimes you like grind up some pearls and some musk and some amber and mix them all into these little pills Now is this still you being used for health at this point or are we talking still so a joyful times? Well, no, this is this is when we really started to say, no, this is a pain medication. This is used, not for fun, although it was fun. This is when you're hurting. You should use this for pain. So that was 1527. Yeah. And this was still kind of something that like your local And that, and this was still kind of something that like your local apothecary might put together for you, but not necessarily like being sold, you know, it wasn't commercially available. Still controlled in as much as there was control over that.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, not a lot of control. But by 1680 Thomas Siddenham was the first one to kind of come out with his version like this is a formula for Lodnam. It has made this way every time. It's not just like something that mom mixes up at home. The Pepsi of Lodnam. You're right exactly. Siddenham's Lodnam. It's not a great name. I think I could have gone with something catchy. It's 1680 so you could pretty much any brand name you want

You could call it Microsoft Lodinum free to lay Lodinum the taste of a new generation taste of a new generation get on board Start getting those trademarks early, but then but then like 20 years later. He came out with new Lodinum Terrible everybody hated that then there was crystal Lodinum nobody liked crystal Lodinum everybody like crystal Lodinum They could not get enough. We not get on crystal Lodnam, nobody liked Crystal Lodnam. Everybody liked Crystal Lodnam. They could not get enough. And we not get on Crystal Lodnam. Or Pepsi, I guess. Yeah, you're still on a case about Crystal Pepsi. We, I don't understand why you liked Crystal Pepsi.

That was pretty good. No, it wasn't. You don't remember, you were too young, you couldn't appreciate it, subtle effervescence. It wasn't good. Anyway, it didn't, it didn't have to. This has been our classic crystal Pepsi bit that you've all been waiting for.

We talk about crystal Pepsi a lot. I used to ponder it while you were trying to fall asleep at night. Yeah, it was great. I would be trying to fall asleep at midnight or 1 a.m. and from across the bed out here. Do you remember crystal Pepsi? Yeah, I do, sweetheart. That's exactly what I sound like, by the way.

That's a pretty good impression. The people at home don't know what you sound like, I'm saying. I would say they have any framer framer framer framer framer. You're right, they're clueless. So this lodinum had a formula. It was mixed with cherry and then like some herbs and some nutmeg and some caster and some saffron.

That sounds nice. And basically, it was prescribed, well prescribed. I'm using air quotes and nobody can see. It was given to you for everything, everything. Give an example. Are you hurting? I am right now. Here's some sudden-hams lard numb.

Are you having trouble sleeping? Yep. Here's some lard numb. Did you get dysentery? Yep. Too bad. But Here's some lardum. Did you get dysentery? Yep. Too bad. But here's some lardum. And this goes back to the classic soblins rule.

Kerales cure nothing. Exactly. And this persisted until they were finally in 1803 in Germany. They were finally able to isolate the active ingredient of OPM, principle, somniferum. And this is until then we didn't know why exactly or how exactly it worked. I guess we probably don't know, still know, in 1803, we probably still don't know exactly how chemically it was affecting us, right?

No, we didn't, but we knew the important part by 1803. We knew something was up. Yeah, we knew that we knew the part that was really important, the morphine. So that's when 1803 is when we finally see morphine, isolated, and at that point, it just, it revolutionized. It was God's own medicine. God's own, is that what they really called it?

Yep, that's what they called it. Thanks God, you did a solid again. And you gotta think at the time, we are kinda being snarky about it because it got people high, but we also didn't have any other strong pain medication yet. So when you were getting your leg amputated,

you know, I mean, Thanks God. I didn't say securely, I apologize for my earlier irony, God. You really are doing me a solid. You know, moreine was pretty important. Right. And it was much safer because it was one,

the one alkaloid, it was purified. We knew exactly what it was. We didn't have all the other parts of the opium, you know, the poppy derivatives that you didn't want in there. Did we start seeing fewer of the like, these sorts of like fun blends? No. No. No.

Not at all. No. I mean, at that point, as the 1800s progressed, you did see Merck, Merck and Company, which I have to assume is still, you know, the pharmaceutical company Merck, the origins of it. They began commercially manufacturing morphine, and that was certainly being used by doctors, you know, for, you know, for pain relief in medical settings.

But lardnum was still being sold over the counter to everyone, to everyone. It was mainly still mixed with alcohol, but I mean, you found it with anything, with mercury, with chloroform, with whiskey, with wine, with cayenne pepper, with hashish, belladonna. I mean, ether. I mean, designer, designer, or a lot of them. Exactly. A lot of them with everything.

And again, being used to treat everything. So at the time, it was very popular for women to look, pale, and frail, and kind of sickly. So it's basically like the late 90s. You know that's a good point. So it was popular to look like Kate Moss. Okay. And what better way to do that than a nasty M.O.P. addiction?

I mean, I could think of a better way, but I'll be great if you could see. It's the 1800s, they couldn't. They couldn't. They're passionations. They're dulled by lodnam. You had two choices, either get TB or look like you have TB by drinking lodnam. What's your secret?

Is it TB? No, I only look like I have TB. It's kind of funny that at the time, men were attracted to women who may have a communicable disease who looked at least like they had one. And in fact you can still see it sororities all across America. Come on. That's just a... Come on, Justin. That's not fair. It's very much still being marketed towards women. Now, I mean, men are definitely using lawddom as well, but women are still being told to use it for, you know,

menstrual cramps and aches and pains, and especially marketed towards women because they're being told to use it for their babies, as we discussed. Oh, God. So not only was Dr. Farney's Teethin-Sirat popular, but there was God-free's cordial. That sounds nice. That sounds kind of high-faluten, I think. I think it sounds high-faluten. That contained opium as well, water, spices, and as I was corrected from our previous episode,

treacle. Treacle? Not Tricle. Oh, yeah. Thanks a lot, Smith. That was very, very, very popular. Steedman's powder, Atkinson's Royal Infants Preservative. My. Why aren't we grandiose with our morphine? And this was being doled out to households by the hundreds

of gallons a year. Well, because we're prescribing it. Well, I mean, because they got addicted to it, right? Well, people were addicted to it for sure, but they were also giving it to their infants in these mass quantities. That's the scary part. And they're actually, and this is not a joke,

it actually probably contributed to infant mortality at the time. Wow, really? Like a discernible amount? Yes, a fair amount because the, I mean the doctors at the time would describe the way the infants looked as wizened like little monkeys. Oh, that actually sounds kind of cute though. Well, it's not. They were wasted, they didn't want to, they were high all the time and they were infants, they couldn't tell you that, but they stopped eating. A lot of the babies suffered from malnutrition.

And I mean, not the parents knew what they were doing. That was certainly not the goal. That was not the desired effect. No, they didn't intend that, certainly. No. But like you said, it was very popular to give to your baby and to take. I mean, at the time, especially in the 1850s, everybody was dying of dysentery and cholera,

so you may as well take some lardium. Enjoy yourself while you're here for crying out loud. As you may or may not know, opiates constipate you, so it actually probably did work for diarrhea. Oh, that's good. So, you know, your stomach's hurting, you're having diarrhea, you take some lardinum,

it probably eased those symptoms. And hey, if you had a cough, it would get rid of that, too. Well, there you go. See, there's two legitimate treatments. Well. It was highly, highly addictive substance. And that was the problem, right? Is that people just didn't know at the time how addictive it was, or maybe they did, they

just didn't want to accept it. In that same time period, they finally figured out how to inject morphine as well. Oh, good. And so that was when they- I miss the flavor, though. I can't, you can't be a cold, goffreads cordial out on the porch.

You know, listen to your cousin hack up his lung to the TV. You're just enjoying it. An ice cold, Adkinson's Royal Infant Preservatives you should really have done commercials for them I think that would have gone down pretty I think I could have really made a name for myself In the in the 1840s its interesting opium was A subject of much controversy not just because everybody was addicted to it

But because it was the cause of a war. Wow, really? Be between China and England. Well, they fight. Well, it had to do with their trade at the time, so China was shipping a lot more to England than England was shipping to China. And England was not pleased with that. Sure.

So they basically just started dumping tons of illegal opium on China In Chinese culture this was remembered as the sweetest day ever The the Chinese people were pretty thrilled. The Chinese government was not. You lost the throne. And an war ensued. Oh man, I have hopefully it's paid out. We settled that. So as you may have guessed, because you live in the year 2013, the story of OPM doesn't, it's not the happiest of endings.

Where do we go from here? You know, at this point, we're in the late 1800s, opium is widely used for theoretically medical purposes and it's being abused. And the thing is, it's not taxed the same way that alcohol is taxed, so it had really become like the working class drug. You know, you had a long day in the, I don't the mines the mill

The the textile playing the textile factory wherever you were and on your way home You don't swing by the pub and pick up a pint if you can't afford it You swing by the drugest and you pick up a bottle of lob them I would imagine and and this is a guess on my part. This is not historically based But I would imagine, and this is a guess on my part, this is not historically based, but I would imagine at this point, the pharmacists sort of knew the score, right? Like, they couldn't be blind to the addictive properties. There's some of the damaging properties of opium at this point, right? They can't still be pleading innocent.

No, I think you're probably right, is that at that point, the pharmacists certainly knew because they were doling out so much of the stuff. And, you know, women were just going through bottle after bottle. So, what's the timeline? I have a feeling that it probably, so things are about to go horribly wrong. In 1874, heroin was first invented. Well, not invented, isolated. Hello, heroin. Can you ruin the story? So heroin. Everyone has a good time.

Heroin shows up. And for a while, we actually think we're on to something good. Because we've realized that people are addicted to opium. And so by 1895, the bear company company as in the makers of aspirin bear aspirin and bear heroin and finer stores everywhere. Well yes they started producing bear heroin they could dilute morphine and produce a less potent form of heroin that they begin to use a few years later to try to get people off opium. You would think if your company's called Bear and you're going to

name a product that you're going to bring to market. You would pick something that slips off the tongue a little easier than Bear Harron. I like the rural jar. Bear Harron. I like the rural dirt. Bear heroin. You every time, well, every time you say it, you sound like you're high. So this is the thing. So you can get away with being high. Sure. Okay. So at that point, heroin is being used as a cure for morphine and laondonum addiction, which doesn't go well. It does not pan out, huh?

So at this point heroin addiction is just through the roof. So by 1903, if you're not addicted to londonum, if you're not addicted to morphine, you're now addicted to heroin. Perfect. So that's finally when, at least in the US, the pure food and drug act is passed in 1906, which is the first time that you are required to tell a consumer what is in whatever they're buying.

1906. So you can't just sell them, you know, Dr. Farney's magic teething syrup. Yeah. You've got to actually list what's on it. Although to be fair in the picture that I looked at of Dr. Farney's Seethings here, it very clearly said that it's got alcohol and more feeding chloroform. Oh yeah. It is not in any way oblique about what it is. No, it's not in the box.

It's not in the box, yeah, baby. Yes. But people realized, I mean, this was the first attempt to start to regulate. By 1914, the Harrison's narcotics act was passed, and that was when it was required that a doctor or a pharmacist had to prescribe the narcotic, and they had to be registered with an agency in order to do that. Is it tracked? Do you know? Do they, you think they would attract who and who was dulling it out and when? That's what they were starting to do that. Is it tracked? Do you know? I mean, do they, you think they would attract who, who, and who was dulling it out and when? That's what they were starting to do.

That's what they were trying to do at this point. I mean, certainly it is now, but that's what this was the beginning of that effort. And, and then by 1923, the selling of narcotics, just, you know, in stores and on the streets became officially illegal. So you could only get it from a licensed physician or pharmacist who was able to prescribe. Sid, I wanna do opium. Okay, how do I do it? Well, you can't.

Okay, but I really, really wanna do opium. How does it work? Okay, well, it's illegal, but if it wasn't, and I was going to let you do it, then you would smoke it. Just put it in like my pipe over there and... No, because you don't... You don't... Just light up. Well, not exactly because you don't actually burn anything.

You just heat it up. And as you heat it up, and it begins to vaporize like the alkaloids in it that are active and the main thing is morphine. So it vaporizes the morphine, and then you inhale the steam, and you get high. Yeah. You get so, so, so high. Oh, okay, so no actual lighting of it.

No, it's just like, it's kind of like an easy bake oven. Basically. It's just a light bulb. Hey, you told me something interesting recently about, we had been talking about something related to this and you told me about a word that got it start within opium dens. Do you remember this? Oh, hipsters. Hipsters. Yeah. So the term hipster originated in opium dens from

people who would lay on their side or lay on their hips while they smoked opium. And so they were called hipsters. And that was the... This is true. Yeah. Okay. Or so the book I was reading said it was true. All right, I'll take your books for it. I'm gonna, if anybody knows that that's wrong, please let me know. But as far as I know, that's absolutely true. Yes, I know. Somebody's gonna let me know.

Have you ever heard Justin about poppy seed muffins or bagels and the dangers of that if you have to take your undrived test? That's an old lifestyle, right? No. No? No. One poppy seed bagel can cause a false positive for opium on

your urine drug screen for up to 48 hours. Wow, good to know. Yeah, that is good to know. And it's a great excuse if you have been smoking opium. So take that Bocbuster video. That's my excuse. That's what happened really. And if you do smoke opium, you are in good company. Do tell. There were, there were many famous opium addicts. They're catapillar. That catapillar from Alice in Wonderland was definitely the most famous of all.

No, a lot of poets and authors. So Samuel Taylor, Coleridge, Percy Shelley, Thomas Dickwinsey, George Crab. Pretty much all their emanic poets. Well, except for William Wordsi, George Crab. Pretty much all their Emanic poets, well, except for William Wordsworth, but everybody else, they were all using opium. Mary Todd Lincoln was addicted to Lawdenham. Did you know that?

Does anybody get off, get off this train? I know, I just like to make sure every time we do one of our episodes that I insult one of the Lincoln's. We got it out. We got your number, Lincoln family. We got you on watch. You find them. You're husband's doing mercury.

We're gonna make you all famous. Finally, finally, the Lincoln's are gonna get the recognition they deserve. But you on the map, Sydney, I know you told me I can't help you, I'm fine, whatever. But we are still using some branch of this family tree I know you told me I can't have opium, fine, whatever. But we are still using some branch of this family tree today in medical care, right?

Absolutely. OPM itself, so if we're talking about Tincture of OPM or Lodnum, they still exist as a scheduled to drugs. Tincture of OPM is what you would use now because you'd actually want to get red of some of the substances that can cause a lot of nausea and vomiting, so you would purify it more. But it's only limited to the use for severe diarrhea, sometimes in terminally ill cancer patients. And they use it off label sometimes for babies who are born to mothers

who are on opiates. So they're addicted. Sorry, what do you mean by off label? Sorry, that means that it's not approved by the FDA. It's not a use that it got approval for. So doctors are using it even though that doesn't come in the literature. We don't have evidence for it. And then there are still, of course, all of the branches of morphine.

So as they purified all the different substances in opiates, we got hydrocodone and oxycodone and hydromorphone and all of the different narcotics that are used for pain control today. Here at Solbona, we can offer you a smooth mellow high, but we can offer you just a half hour relaxation, a little distraction from your day-to-day worries and cares, and we certainly appreciate you giving us that privilege every week. Absolutely, now we thank you for

tuning in and we would much prefer you to listen to our show than do any drugs, please. We have a new Twitter account thanks to some dear friends we were able to pull some strings and we got at solbones so that's where you can follow us on Twitter pretty cool pretty easy to remember we also have a web page it's solbonesshowbut.com but that just redirects to our maximum fun page where you can find us and all the other fine maximum fun programs. So make sure you check those out in a George Jesse, go another hip podcast there.

Just started a Kickstarter campaign where they wanna buy 1,000 ice cream cones for some people in Denver. Hey, let's move to Denver. Fine, what a fine, fine. I'm gonna save on that $7 or the ice cream. I love ice cream too. I love ice cream too.

We are on Twitter ourselves. I'm at Justin McRoy. She's at Sydney McRoy. S-Y-D in E. E. And if you would be so kind and you got a couple of minutes, head over to iTunes and subscribe to our show, review it, recommend it to friends.

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Hope you'll take advantage of one. We hope you'll join us next Friday for another Sobones. I'm Justin McElroy. I'm Justin McElroy. I'm Sydney McElroy. As always, don't drill a hole in your head. Alright! Maximumfund.org Comedy and Culture, Artist-owned Listener-supported