WEIRD stuff from the golden era

[hatophile]

"There were a lot of really bogus medical procedures still perpetrated in the 50's, comparable to blood letting and the use of mercury as an antiseptic."

"There were a lot of really bogus medical procedures still perpetrated in the 2010's, comparable to blood letting and the use of mercury as an antiseptic."

There fixed it for you. A lot of very smart medical people know now that certain drugs like statins and anti depressants are much more dangerous than commonly believed and in many cases do more harm than good. This is not new, it seems every year drugs are taken off the market and medical procedures go out of use when they discover they are harmful, usually after a few hundred or a few thousand patients are killed.

I used to have absolute faith in the medical profession but the more I have to do with them, the more leery I get. I wouldn't go so far as to refuse all treatment at their hands but I do a lot more to educate myself than I used to.

Unfortunately, many Americans want a quick fix by just taking a pill.

 

[TomS]

Weird stuff...

 

[Story]

April 1934...

 

[Shangas]

April 1934...

Damn!!

 

[Story]

See http://cdn-www.i-am-bored.com/media/67907_deadgiantmantaray.jpg

and http://www.fishingfury.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/manta-ray-record.JPG
(captions for these two : This gigantic manta is the biggest fish ever hooked and landed. The ray measured 19 feet, 9 inches from wing-tip to wing-tip and weighed over 5000 pounds.)
and http://www.fishingfury.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/record-manta-ray.jpg



See also
http://weeklyworldnews.com/headlines/45445/worlds-largest-manta-ray/

 

[Story]

Polly wants a double Scotch, neat.

ST. LOUIS • The St. Louis Zoo opened its new $225,000 bird house on Oct. 5, 1930. It was the last word on avian habitat for urban zoos, allowing visitors to see and hear their exotic feathered friends up close.

The zoo boasted a rare collection of rare birds. Brewer August Busch Sr. had donated a King parakeet, one of only three in the United States.

Another St. Louisan gave the zoo his parrot, which had a flaw that went unnoticed until the crowds arrived.

The red-headed bird cursed a blue streak. The Post-Dispatch reported that its mildest phrase was “Go to hell.” Other oral flourishes couldn’t make print.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/...cle_4de7f545-f0ba-59b2-9b73-58d625526587.html

 

[W-D Forties]

Asbestos used for everything.

Hiding from air raids under the stairs.

Having all your teeth removed for your 21st birthday then having a nice new set of gnashers to replace them.

Never being allowed to learn to swim because of the danger of contracting polio.

Going deaf through measles.

TB! Though, sadly making a comeback.

The last 4 applied to my mum, by the way, back in the 30-40's. Thank god for the NHS!

 

[Gingerella72]

Having all your teeth removed for your 21st birthday then having a nice new set of gnashers to replace them.

Um......WHAT??? :eeek:

 

[W-D Forties]

Yup. Aparantly it was all the rage in the 30' and 40's!

 

[Shangas]

I might add that the history documentary "Blitz Street", by Tony Robinson, confirmed that hiding under a staircase was a perfectly legitimate way to escape a bomb-blast during the Second World War. The strength required to build the staircase was capable of withstanding the shock of the explosions.

Story, the um...story...about the swearing parrot is hilarious!! This bit had me in absolute stitches:

Members of Pi Kappa Alpha at the Missouri School of Mines in Rolla (now Missouri University of Science and Technology) wrote, “There are 88 boys in this fraternity who would be more than pleased to have a pet that is both entertaining and instructive.”

 

[LizzieMaine]

While en-masse preventative extraction at 21 was never a popular or common thing in the US, it was considered a fact of life here that most people would lose at least some of their natural teeth by their thirties -- and it was quite rare for someone over fifty to have all, or even most, of their natural teeth: flouridated drinking water didn't become common until the sixties and seventies, which made a major difference in the prevalence of tooth decay.

One doesn't think of dentists as colorful characters, but the Era had E. L. "Painless" Parker, a flamboyant huckster who franchised an entire chain of associated dental clinics using his "painless" method of extractions. "Painless" traveled the country giving lectures on his system, illustrating them with a large pail of extracted teeth:

"Next!"

 

[Shangas]

I know that mercury was used for many things back in the old days. Hat-making, thermometers, a treatment for syphilis...

But how the hell does it work as an antiseptic!?

 

[dhermann1]

In the Civil War doctors slatherd the stuff on. A union surgeon who tried to say that mercury was actually a deadly poison was cashiered from the service and his career was practically ruined. When I was a kid in the 50s we still used mercurochrome. Who knew the "mercuro" stood for mercury???

 

[LizzieMaine]

Pffft, only the middle-class kids got Mercurochrome -- we proles had to settle for common old iodine. We all knew it was poison because it had a skeleton head on the label, so it must be good for killing germs, right?

We did, however, get to play with mercury in science class, pushing it around on the desk with a pencil while the teacher lectured about it.

 

[dhermann1]

As late as 1956 there was a totally quack procedure that was embraced by mainstream medicine, that involved opening the chest of a heart patient (this was before the heart-lung machine, so the heart just sat there beating the whole time), and sprinkling bits of asbestos on the beating heart. No, this wasn't performed by Aztec priests, it was done by heart surgeons. I've actually seen films of it. This was supposed to do . . . somethng . . . to help the heart.

 

[Shangas]

Asbestos eh? Maybe it was to cool down the fires of love...

Some years back, my mother purchased a Chop for me, as a Christmas present.

For those who don't know what that is, it's a Chinese seal-stamp, carved of stone, with your name in it.

Traditionally, they come with a small bowl of red, cinnabar paste. You press the chop into the paste, then you stamp the chop onto whatever document you want to sign, and it leaves a nice, red mark there.

It's a Chinese tradition for a man to have a chop with his name on it, for signing important documents. Chop-carving is quite an artform in China. My grandfather had one, and my mother decided to extend the tradition to me.

Of course, the thing about this is...Cinnabar is pure mercury-ore.

If I ever go stark, raving mad while signing my name, you'll know why....

 

[LizzieMaine]

For many years my mother chain-smoked a brand of cigarettes with a futuristic filter containing asbestos fibers. And every theatre had a big asbestos fire curtain required by law to be displayed to the audience during each show -- they often had the word ASBESTOS painted across them so you knew it was the real deal.

Another thing we did in science class was put little square asbestos-covered mesh pads on a tripod on top of our bunsen burners to hold the beakers.

Asbestos shingles are still very common in New England -- many houses were sheathed in them for fire protection, and as long as you don't disturb them they aren't much of a hazard.

 

[Espee]

My mom pushed mercury around in the office of her father-- a dentist.

 

[Shangas]

Another thing we did in science class was put little square asbestos-covered mesh pads on a tripod on top of our bunsen burners to hold the beakers.

I know the ones! I think we still used them when I was in school...Yikes!

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

Some years ago a friend of mine was a cook at a campgrounds. He cooked for a lot of people, and used a large thermometer which contained mercury. After eating a mess of fries one evening that he had deep fried with the thermometer, they noticed that it had shattered, spreading mercury all throughout their fries!
Of course they were freaked out by it, and called the local emergency room. But the doctor there assured them that elemental mercury would simply pass right through the body without causing any harm. Although if it were in the form of a readily absorbed compound, such as an oxide, that would be a different story.