Is this what I think it is?

[Paul Barton, Special Agent]

Check out the advertisement in the bottom left hand corner. It's from The Pall Mall Gazette (London, England), Wednesday, April 14, 1897.

[Margaret in Burton]

Sorry Paul, it's a bit small. To what are you referring?

[Paul Barton, Special Agent]

Ah... how do I enlarge it?

[samesizedfeet]

yep - too small for me too

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

*reaches for X-Ray specs....

Epp's Cocoaine?

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

[ATTACH]10106[/ATTACH]

[Olde Crone Holden]

Yep, that's the stuff!

Beloved of Dentists in my youth, for knocking you out and pulling out your teeth, amongst many other things.

OC

[Christine in Herts]

That's quite likely, in an era in which Morphine/Opium, Laudanum and other such pick-me-ups were regarded as the norm. It's said that the initial recipes for Coca Cola included cocaine - but that may well be Urban Myth!

Cigarettes used to be regarded as healthy by some.

Christine

[Mary from Italy]

Cocaine was certainly used, but a quick google search indicates that cocoa nibs come from cocoa beans, not the coca plant.

So it was just a bedtime drink.

[Mary from Italy]

However, I wonder if they deliberately invented the name cocoaine to fool people into thinking they were getting a narcotic?

[Uncle John]

I think it's just a way of making money from the left-overs from the cocoa/chocolate making process. It probably tasted vaguely chocolatey but I bet all the bits floated on the top. Maybe you had to pour it through a tea-strainer.

[Uncle John]

Incidentally, I was amazed by the enormous range of quack remedies advertised in the papers in the early and mid 19th. century.

[James]

A bit like chicken nuggets all the bits left over.

[Olde Crone Holden]

UJ

That's probably because most people couldn't afford to go to the doctor, and if they could, he couldn't cure them.

My grandfather, like many of his generation, was obsessed with "inner cleanliness". Once a week he downed a big mugful of soapy water, convinced that his innards were getting a good wash.

I find an interesting parallel with today's obsession with health foods, supplements and so-called natural remedies - seems we have never trusted our doctors. Either that, or they have never been any good at curing us.

OC

[Little Nell]

Cocaine was used as an anaesthetic for eye surgery (I read about this in the Medical bit of the Science Museum)

It was popular for medicinal purposes (Shakleton & Scott both had cocaine tablets when they went to Antarctica), only later did its addictive qualities cause it to be banned.

Laudanum (an opium product) was used widely by the Victorians (Elizabeth Barratt Browning was addicted to it) and also arsenic, used for a variety of medicinal and cosmetic purposes, to kill flies and of course it was the classic poison of that era.

[Jill on the A272]

The Bright Young Things were made considerably brighter by their heroin & cocaine use..plus ca change..fictional Sherlock Holmes had a habit too that didn't include cocoa.

[Velma Dinkley]

Certainly gives 'high tea' a whole different meaning..... :D

[Little Nell]

Rachel, lol!

OC
Not sure if the quack remedies were advertised because people didn't have faith in their doctors or because there wasn't such stringent legislation to prevent people being sold "snake oil", as we have nowadays.

As for doctors not being good at curing, reminds me of the Frank Lloyd Wright quote "A physician can bury his mistakes. An architect can only advise his client to plant vines"!

[Olde Crone Holden]

But that's the whole point, Nell, we ARE being sold snake oil, in the form of vitamin supplements, a "new wonder discovery" from some impossibly named tree found only in one square yard of the Peruvian junglw, but known for its amazing curative properties by centuries of Peruvian medicine men....

My mother suffered from severe rheumatoid arthritis, but took great pride in "not taking drugs". She spent a fortune on health cures of all descriptions and prices, none of which helped any more than the "drugs".

I pointed out that EVERYTHING in the plant kingdom can be used as a drug and contains chemicals, but she was adamant that the natural stuff was healthy and harmless.

Well, foxglove is healthy and natural - but it will kill you if you eat enough of it!

OC

[Jill on the A272]

I agree with OC, a well known health food store is selling huge drums of supplements, a long way from healthy eating.