Drugs Before Regulation

The 19th century saw the gradual transition in the medical community from learning the profession by studying with the local doctor (akin to ‘reading law’ with a local lawyer) to attending accredited medical schools and colleges. Doing the rounds with local doctors was still acceptable, but after the Civil War this became less and less the way to earn the right to practice (except in the most remote areas of the nation). People still self-doctored and self-medicated, especially since it was so easy — town chemist shops or drug stores stocked everything anyone could possibly need for every ailment known, and prescriptions were not necessary. Laudanum, cocaine, morphine, chloroform, opium were all available to the public without scrip. Newspapers carried drug market prices and tracked movements in these commodities. A famous case of self-medicating was Mary Lincoln. A victim of migraines as well as a host of devastating personal tragedies, Mary Lincoln self-administered a cocktail of drugs that is believed to have led to a diagnosis of insanity and a stay in an insane asylum. One of the drugs she was known to have taken was a newcomer on the market around 1870, chloral hydrate, a drug capable of rendering a patient unconscious in the right dosage, but also marketed to help with ordinary sleep problems. This, combined with the laudanum that Mary Lincoln was also known to take and the wine used to wash it all down, is believed to have pushed her into unstable behavior that mimicked insanity. Her behavior was considered so erratic by her one surviving son, Robert, that he had her committed to Bellevue Insane Asylum in Illinois. This action by Robert (which could easily be seen as a maneuver to rid himself of a somewhat embarrassing parent) caused a permanent estrangement from his mother.