Heroin, radium and 5 deadly substances that are sold in pharmacies

A lotion made from asbestos and heroin for babies? In our age of universal paranoia when people look askance even Hematogen, such things seem savagery. And yet it is a fact that when lethal substances sold freely in pharmacies and even prescribed by doctors.

The ancient Romans used a vengeance lead, shoving it in paint for painting of the plate, the water pipes, contrary to numerous warnings of caesarean engineers. And the acetate of lead and they were added to wine to make it sweeter. Of course, etched in large quantities — such that now historians speculate whether the cause of the fall of the Empire and mental disorders that lead causes, getting into the body.

The Roman historian Pliny the Elder believed that the clothes impregnated with asbestos, "and will protect you from all slandering, even those that let the Magi". Well if one Pliny. All Romans were impregnated asbestos tablecloths, so they do not burn. (The table is easy to clean: put the cloth into the fire, and got clean.) Interestingly, Pliny, while not advised to buy slaves who worked in asbestos quarries. "Before they die," he wrote.

Medieval physician Paracelsus Europe was prescribed opium as a pain reliever. And because it was also in marketing strong, then renamed the opium in the "laudanum" — "in health". Treated them like aspirin, everything from the common cold to diarrhea. CH even resorted to it when poorly written. About the treachery of opium started talking only in the XVIII century, and then only due to the fact that several people were poisoned, taking him together with camphor.

Robert Loibl, the head of the company that produced DDT, was so confident in safety of the pesticide that even undertook to prove that. Three months, he stuffed them himself and his wife, noting the complete absence of adverse effects and even experiencing a surge of energy. Later research showed that DDT and non-toxic truth: it only causes cancer and delayed neurological imbalances.

Young mother in 1898 packs bought heroin from Bayer for their kids — as an excellent means of SARS. It was soon approved by even the American medical Association as forming the dependence replace morphine. Oh how mistakenly approved! When they began to be alarming signals, Bayer admitted his mistake and drug production in 1913 was removed. But 10 years of heroin pills, lozenges and elixirs continued to sell to everyone.

In the mid-nineteenth century it was believed that camphor helps hysteria, cholera and gout. Later, however, doctors figured out that the camphor is toxic, and she had to make a career in the industry of fireworks. However, today camphor contained in different massage ointments and creams, soothing itching, the packaging of which bears the inscription: "Swallowed, immediately run to the wash room."

Why not just treats radium! In the 1920s it was added to the toothpaste, and soap, and even contraceptives. There was even an elixir of longevity, called "Editor". Steel magnate Eben Byers drank about 1400 bottles of this tool for several years and died after surgery to remove the jaw, the bones in his body began to decompose. Luckily for him the drink's popularity sharply declined precipitously, and many fans of radium managed to survive.

In the 1930s, was opened fluoride is a byproduct of aluminum production. He was considered a terrible toxin that hate people from Alcoa, who knew about the disinfectant properties of fluorine. To help them come advertiser Edward Bernays. He persuaded one publisher to include in the dictionary the term "fluoride", saying that in the world the so-called saturation fluoride tap water. And then put the dictionary to the governors: we will water foryouth!