When life gives you depression, make rockets!

We battle depression. We are struck with grief. Military metaphors feel intuitive when describing mental anguish. But the relationship between warfare and depression runs deeper than you might think.

After the Second World War, a defeated Germany had to get rid of leftover V-2 rocket fuel. The pharmaceutical industry bought up the rocket propellant, hydrazine, at a discount rate. Chemists at Hoffmann-La Roche then got to work experimenting with the rocket fuel and, through trial and error, developed two promising compounds.

The two chemicals (called iproniazid and isoniazid) killed tuberculosis bacteria. On further testing in patients, doctors noticed something else. TB patients taking rocket-fuel-derived treatment seemed happier.

Encouraged to investigate the mood-altering effects of anti-tuberculosis drugs, scientists discovered that the drugs boosted levels of chemical messengers (neurotransmitters) between nerve cells; called monoamines. Raising the concentrations of monoamines (e.g. noradrenaline, dopamine and serotonin) helped alleviate symptoms of depression. This hypothesis led to the development of new classes of drugs to treat mental illness.

Yes, we have depression drugs because of … Nazi rockets.

California Rocket Fuel is a slang term used by medical professionals to refer to a combination treatment of Remeron (Mirtazapine) and Effexor (Venlafaxine). The moniker has nothing to do with the drugs’ ingredients. It merely relates to a rapid improvement in depression experienced by some patients on this treatment.

Fire Medicine

The Epic of Gilgamesh, composed more than 4,000 years ago, is one of the oldest surviving stories in literature. It introduced the world’s first superhero in a failed quest for immortality. But, undeterred by Gilgamesh’s failure, humans continue to fumble in the dark, hoping to snatch eternal life from the jaws of death. Sometimes, the consequences are tragically ironic.

In 9th-century China, alchemists tried to brew the elixir of life. In an energetic effort to prolong the Emperor’s vitality, experimental medicines were made from various recipes. A Taoist text from the time describes the accidental discovery of one particular potion, huo yao, which means “fire medicine”. That fire-drug turned out to be gunpowder.

dysPEPSIa

Pepsi was created by an American pharmacist, Caleb Bradham, in 1893. Bradham had attended the University of Maryland School of Medicine as an aspiring doctor but had to drop out due to a family crisis. He opened a drug store instead, and named his invention ‘Brad’s Drink’. Bradham believed the drink aided digestion; renaming it Pepsi-Cola (dyspepsia is the medical term for indigestion).

Pepsi was the first American consumer product to be sold in the USSR. At that time, the Soviet ruble was not internationally accepted, so the USSR paid with vodka. When vodka supplies could no longer keep up with Russian demands for Pepsi, the USSR traded a military fleet for three billion dollars worth of Pepsi. Pepsi suddenly owned 17 submarines, a cruiser, a frigate, and a destroyer. Pepsi was now the 6th most powerful navy in the world. The fleet was quickly sold to a Swedish company for scrap recycling.

Operation INFEKTION

It is easier than ever to spread medical disinformation, but the phenomenon is not new. Before anti-vaxxers, stories circulated that water fluoridation was a government plot for mind control and population restriction. In the 1980s, rumours circulated that HIV/AIDS was a man-made disease, while vaccination projects in Africa were reported to be a deliberate attempt to infect Africans.

The 1980s KGB campaign of disinformation, called Operation INFEKTION, spread the idea that HIV/AIDS was created in an American government laboratory (specifically Fort Detrick, Maryland). The campaign explained that HIV/AIDS was a product of a biological weapons research project.

Tobacco in Your Bread?

Niacin, vitamin B3, was the third of the B vitamins to be discovered. It was historically known as “vitamin PP” or “PP-factor” because it prevented a disease called pellagra (“pellagra-preventive factor”). Pellagra means ‘rough skin’, but doctors remember the symptoms of pellagra by the 4 D’s: Dermatitis; Diarrhea; Dementia; and Death.

Niacin was initially named nicotinic acid because it was first extracted from nicotine. Food fortification (vitamin-enriched foods) was introduced to prevent pellagra. In 1942, when the lay press learned that nicotinic acid was being added to flour, they ran with the headline: “Tobacco in Your Bread.”

A new name was coined to distance the vitamin from nicotine and to avoid the impression that cigarettes contain vitamins or that vitamins contain nicotine. The new name, niacin, comes from the words nicotinic, acid and vitamin.

Sneezes

Responses to a sneeze: In South Africa/Afrikaans: Gesondheid! (Health!). In Sweden/Norway:Prosit! (May it help!). Switzerland: Salute! (To health!). Portugal: Santinho! (Little saint!). Turkey: Cok yasa! (Live long!). At some point, the largest synchronized sneeze happened and nobody was aware of it.

It’s elementary school, my dear Watson

John Watson, the famous psychologist who founded the psychological school of behaviorism, wrote for the popular press during the 1920s. He regarded child-rearing as a science, and believed that mollycoddling youngsters impaired healthy development. Watson offered the following advice for raising happy, well-adjusted kids:

“Let your behavior always be objective and kindly firm. Never hug and kiss them, never let them sit in your lap. If you must, kiss them once on the forehead when they say good night. Shake hands with them in the morning. Give them a pat on the head if they have made an extraordinarily good job of a difficult task.”

The Mark of Mercurochrome

I remember my great-grandmother liberally painting road rashes with Mercurochrome. Before it became a playground antiseptic, Mercurochrome was a urinary antiseptic. It is a mercury derivative of a red dye (phenolsulfonphthalein) exclusively eliminated through the kidney. The dye’s discovery led to the Rowntree-Geraghty kidney function test where a patient could have her kidney function tested by drinking the chemical dye while doctors measured the concentration of pink colour and speed with which it appeared in the urine. Leonard Rowntree, instrumental in developing the now-defunct test was a Canadian physician who also helped develop the research tradition at the Mayo Clinic.

I take my tea with a spot of milk

The “Tea Doctor”, Cornelis Bontekoe, advised patients to “drink fifty or a hundred or two hundred cups [of tea] at a time”. Bontekoe’s birth name was Cornelis Dekker. His father owned a grocery store in Holland; adorned with a spotted cow on the store sign. Cornelis took inspiration from the sign and changed his name to Bontekoe (“spotted cow”). Despite his dotty name, Dr Bontekoe’s first book (Treatise on Tea, the Most Excellent Herb; 1678) found the public spotlight. Bontekoe advised “men and women to drink tea daily; hour by hour if possible; beginning with 10 cups a day, and increasing the dose to the utmost quantity that the stomach can contain and the kidneys eliminate.”

Bontekoe claimed to have cured himself of stones and his patron of gout by drinking copious amounts of tea. Contemporary physicians regarded all that tea-drinking as a waste of time and money, but the Dutch East India Company was happy to milk this cash cow. The Company imported tea from China. Dr Bontekoe’s advice was good for business, so the Company awarded him generous remuneration for his tea advocacy.

Unfortunately, Cornelis Bontekoe’s tea-guzzling did not grant him longevity because he fell down the stairs, fractured his skull, and died shortly afterwards. No one knows if he was hurrying to the bathroom when he tripped.