Godlike Productions - Discussion Forum
Users Online Now: 2,364 (Who's On?)Visitors Today: 655,268
Pageviews Today: 1,143,161Threads Today: 480Posts Today: 8,058
01:44 PM


Rate this Thread

Absolute BS Crap Reasonable Nice Amazing
 

Sigmund Freud, cocaine & the birth of big pharma

 
theresident
Offer Upgrade

User ID: 379066
Canada
05/31/2008 12:17 AM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Sigmund Freud, cocaine & the birth of big pharma
Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, was also a pioneer of psychopharmacology. He was one of the first to scientifically investigate the properties and effects of cocaine, and played no small role in the growth of the pharmaceuticals industry.

In 1884, Freud read a paper which described the effects of cocaine on Bavarian soldiers. The author, a German physician named Theodor Aschenbrandt, reported that the drug suppressed the appetite and increased mental powers and endurance.

Intrigued, Freud obtained some samples of the drug, and began to experiment with it himself. Later that year, he published a review called Uber Coca, which contains the "definitive description of the effects" of the drug on humans:

exhilaration and lasting euphoria, which in no way differs from the normal euphoria of the healthy person...You perceive an increase of self-control and possess more vitality and capacity for work...In other words, you are simply normal, and it is soon hard to believe you are under the influence of any drug....Long intensive physical work is performed without any fatigue...This result is enjoyed without any of the unpleasant after-effects that follow exhilaration brought about by alcohol...Absolutely no craving for the further use of cocaine appears after the first, or even after repeated taking of the drug...

Freud became extremely enthusiastic about the drug - "I take very small doses of it regularly," he said, "against depression and indigestion" - and regarded it is as something like a panacea, which would be an effective treatment for various conditions, including asthma and addiction to morphine and alcohol.

The pharmaceuticals companies Merck and Parke Davies, which had only just been established, began paying him to promote and endorse their rival brands of the drug. At around the same time, Karl Koller, an ophthalmic surgeon, discovered that cocaine was an excellent local anaesthetic.

As a result, use of cocaine as a local anaesthetic became widespread (e.g. in the form of toothache drops for children) and the pharmaceuticals companies increased commercial production of the purified drug. Thus, with a helping hand from Sigmund Freud, was big pharma born.

[link to scienceblogs.com]

freud
Anonymous Coward
User ID: 50453282
Spain
11/23/2013 09:43 AM
Report Abusive Post
Report Copyright Violation
Re: Sigmund Freud, cocaine & the birth of big pharma





GLP