Friday, March 23, 2018

Strange Tonic For Freaky Friday...!

So many types of snake oil medicines have been popular over the years, it would be hard to list them all.What's troubling,though, is the fact that many were considered good for you by the medical community.

Vin Mariani



Photo credit: Jules Cheret

Vin Mariani was a tonic wine, basically a French red Bordeaux with a twist: It was mixed with cocaine. It was prescribed for men who were overworked, so it was basically the original gangster of energy drinks. Invented and debuted in 1863, it continued into the 1900s as a form of nervous system stimulant, but it had a particularly high dose of cocaine.

The idea was to drink two or three glasses throughout the day to maintain a healthy nervous system. This actually sounds delicious, and it no doubt must have worked for its intended purpose. Though with the strong side effects of drug addiction and alcoholism, it can hardly be called medicine.

Thank goodness the V.A. has not issued a prescription for anything like this for me...yet!

Coffee out on the patio again.

5 comments:

Mamahen said...

I guess they couldn't get him for false advertising. Wow!To cold for the patio here. It may get up to 40 later today.

linda m said...

Sounds like all the "happy " pills women used to take years ago. Just glad I don't take anything stronger than an aspirin. Have a great weekend.

HermitJim said...

Hey Mamahen...
I don't think they cared back then.
Thanks for stopping by today!


Hey Linda...
Some of the older medicines were strange indeed.
Thanks for coming over today!

JO said...

Those early so called medicines had loads of cocaine and other addictive drugs in them. I have an old 1902 The Sears, Roebuck Catalogue, couldn't believe what they sold back then. BTW it isn't an original but it is still fun to look through.

It sure is staring to heat up around here. see you on the patio

Sixbears said...

Probably no worse than some of the stuff the VA hands out.