| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Will's question (again) | |
| Posted by: | Alastair Banton | |
| Date/Time: | 04/10/13 10:10:00 |
| Further to Jonathan’s informative history lesson above it just so happens that last night on BBC4 there was a fascinating documentary by Dr Michael Mosley called ‘Pain, Pus and Poison – the search for modern medicine’ (available on your i-player) which recalls the time when heroin was legal. In fact, it was synthesised at around the same time as aspirin. But shock, horror, it was heroin that found favour and began to be widely used as a medicine right up to the 1950s. Aspirin was at first rejected and it was some time before its benefits were recognised. In fact, as recently as 1955 The Times wrote an editorial ‘The Case for Heroin’. Read all about it here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4647018.stm |