Re: [DL] Medicine

["Eric Young" <ecyoung@attbi.com>]

| My new character is a huckster doctor. I am looking to
| portray him as mainly a doctor. I'm looking into
| trying to portray him better than.
| I open my medicine bag and treat the patient (roll
| medicine general or surgery). I would greatly
| appreciate it if any of you may be able to give me any
| information or direction to go with. Also where would
| you pick the drugs necessary for use of practice. I'm
| supposing that the drugstore wouldn't carry all the
| drugs a doctor uses to practice with.
| Again any help would be very much appreciative

Actually, the drugstore is exactly where you'd go to get your drugs.
Remember that this is way before the Federal Controlled Substance Act.
Anyone can buy anything...
As for which drugs you'd use; I could give you a whole list of drugs, when
to give it, how much to give, how to give it, what to will do, etc... but
most of the drugs we use now weren't around back then...
Having said that, two drugs that I know were in common use back then would
be Morphine Sulfate (an opiate analgesic which also causes peripheral
vasodilatation) and Chloral Hydrate (a very powerful hypnotic sedative, the
exact mechanism of action of this drug is unknown even now and because of
this it is rarely prescribed anymore. Quite a few synthetic drugs have taken
its place, the family of benzodiazapines come to mind. But back in the mid
to late 1800s it was very commonly used. Alcohol has a synergistic effect
with this drug and will often result in a fatal overdose. Among certain
groups in the late 1800s it was known as "the Green Fairy").
Cocaine was also being used as a local anesthetic in the mid-late 19th
century. I don't believe that recreational use became popular until the
1890s, although I could be wrong...


Eric Young
EMT-B and Paramedic student