History of Drugs

Question 1

What was the life expectancy in the past, what is it now and when did we start seeing this improvement?

Answer 1

6000+ years ago: 30-35
today: 82
Improvement: over the last150 years

Question 2

Why was the life expectancy so low in the past?

Answer 2

diseases, lice/fleas, worms living in the body

Question 3

What were the main causes of death in the past (1900’s) compared to now?

Answer 3

Past: mainly due to contracting diseases (pneumonia, tuberculosis, flu)
Now: mainly due to the body wearing out (heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes)

Question 4

What are the 5 reasons for our improved health? describe them.

Answer 4

sanitation, clean water, refrigeration, vaccination, antibiotics

Sanitation:
- toilets > outhouses (cities) - chamber pots (large cities)
- closed> open sewage - all the waste would go into open sewage and contaminate
- transporting dead people with no protection

Clean water:
- water was always contaminated -> nature isn’t pure
- guinea worm (dracunculiasis) was in the water and would like in the muscles in the body and consume the person. the extraction would burn
- Now we have filtered water and chlorination (kills bacteria + viruses)

Refrigeration:
- In the past, they would eat spoilt food
- Now we have refrigeration and can eat foods through all the seasons (ex: strawberries in the winter)

Vaccination:
- provides a high benefit with small risk (viral diseases)
- has eliminated diseases such as smallpox 1977
- polio has been eradicated, only in 2 countries, the barrier=politics

Antibiotics:
- reduce bacterial infections (ex: penicillin reduced maternal death - they contracted infections during birth but now we’re not worried about that.

Question 5

What was it that has allowed us to make improvements over the years to improve life expectancy?

Answer 5

The scientific method: work and are safe

Question 6

How much are prescription and over-the-counter meds worth?

Answer 6

300B and 25B

Question 7

Where did most ancient drugs come from and why?

Answer 7

Plants. Easy accessible, plants create poison as a defense mechanism and that is what’s used for drugs.

It’s the dose that’s important.
Low dose = drug (beneficial)
High dose = poison (harmful)
*In some cases it’s different (ex: Insulin - needs high dose to be a drug)

“only the dose makes the poison” (ex: pharmakon)

Question 8

What question is important to ask when being told something about a poison/drug?

Answer 8

Ask “how much?” (goes for anything - drugs, finance, pollution)

Question 9

How were ancient drugs discovered?

Answer 9

Through observation (trial and error)
- magic: beliefs, superstitions/religion, made up
- strong poisons were easy to identify but weak poisons weren’t (need a high dose for an effect)

Question 10

What are two examples of ancient drugs found in plants?

Answer 10

Opium (analgesic): pain killer found in poppy seeds (high dose= poison, low dose= drug)
- basis for most painkillers

Cocaine: Found in cocoa leaves, topical pain killer (stimulant)
- basis for many anesthetics

Question 11

What are the disadvantages of observations with drugs?

Answer 11

• Our brain searches for patterns that aren’t there
• no experiments/ stats
• when evidence is available it’s hard to get rid of false info

Question 12

Apophenia?

Answer 12

seeing patterns that aren’t here.

Question 13

Pareidolia?

Answer 13

Hearing sounds or seeing images as something else

Question 14

What is anecdotal evidence?

Answer 14

evidence that people think is true by seeing it happen maybe once but it doesn’t mean it’s always going to happen the same (ex: you may eat a plant the same time you were getting better / someone falls off a building and survives… but not the case for everyone)

Question 15

What’s wrong with traditional remedies?

Answer 15

• can’t control the amount of active ingredient
• chemicals change with preparation
• no standardization
• once someone accepts an idea it’s hard to change their views (ex: eating bugs in Canada)

Question 16

Doctrine of Humours: Hippocrates

Answer 16

universe made of 4 things: water, air, fire, earth
human body made of 4 things: blood, phlem, yellow bile, black bile

an imbalance in one of these causes disease so just do the opposite (ex: fever= hot and dry so fix with wet and cold)

Question 17

What were some treatments done with the doctrine of humours?

Answer 17

1. Bloodletting - using leeches (not good, we need blood, this can cause infections)
2. Purging
3. Fasting
   *harmful and painful

Question 18

Doctrine of Signatures - Jakob Bohme

Answer 18

There are clues in the world given to us that we have to encode - they tell us what to do.

Question 19

Examples of the doctrine of signatures:
Walnuts:
Boneset:
Shark cartilage:
Breath mints:
Mandrake roots:
Rhino horn
Mercury:

Answer 19

1. they look like brains: good for ur brain health
2. the stem goes through the plant like bones go through our bodies - cure broken bones
3. “sharks don’t get cancer” - used cartilage to cure it but… FALSE
4. chloryphil is what takes bad breath away - parsely = green and chlorophyll = green… but not true
5. the plant looks like a person, MAGIC was used to cure demonic possession - screamed when harvested so they used dogs
6. phallic symbol - increase sexual desire (aphrodisiac)
7. heavy liquid to remove all toxins in the body - purgative

Question 20

what two drugs were created in 1846 and 1850’s for use during amputation?

Answer 20

1846: willian T.G: Ether - more humaine because it knocked people out with no pain - bit still not sanitary
1850’s: Humphry Davy - nitrous oxide (laughing gas) - the patient won’t remember and reduces pain - used as a propellant (whipped cream)

Anesthetics make modern surgery possible, less than 30% of people survived back then - infections

Question 21

IN 1867, what did Joseph Lister invent? What did he use to make it?

Answer 21

Antiseptic.
Phenol.
He invented a carbolic acid sprayer which would turn phenol into vapour and was used to disinfect bacteria during surgery… BUT this ended up being very toxic for the doctors who inhaled large amounts of it (poison)

Listerine was used as a household product… but no longer contains phenol

Question 22

In 1877, What was suggested after the mishap with intoxicated doctors? Who brought this idea to Canada?

Answer 22

Cleaning/washing and gloves - got rid of bacteria before

Thomas Roddik

Question 23

In 1856, what did William Perkin make?

Answer 23

First artifical dye… made dye’s out of less expensive materials… this was the start to artificial drugs (first one being aspirin)
- better for us, nature doesn’t try to benefit us, genetically engineered (ex: insulin)

Question 24

Before 1907 what was missing?

Answer 24

Rules.
patented medicine was popular (fake medicine) anything that says “no side effects” is BS

alcohol and opium were active ingredients to give the illusion of feeling better

Question 25

What was the purpose of radioactive water proposed by William J.A., and who drank it to cause removal of his skull?

Answer 25

To kill cancer. Eben Byers

Question 26

In 1907, the board of food and drug inspection was created, what was their purpose and what was an example of why there needed to be more done?

Answer 26

they put in governement regulations and made labelling mandatory - had to list ingredients

example: Messengill company
- sold drugs with mannibis and morphine together -> death
sold sulfanilamide as a powder but made it into a liquid for kids using etheline glycol (sweet) and children died

the only way it got off the shelves was by false labelling of ingtredient

Question 27

in 1938 the FDA was created, what was their purpose.

Answer 27

they made testing, clinical trials, and direction for use on labels mandatory