Cocaine (toothache drops)

This is why blogging is so much fun.

While reading Umberto Eco‘s latest novel, The Prague Cemetery, I learn that cocaine drops where used in the late 1800’s to calm toothache and earlier as a tonic. In the book, there’s this beautiful image of the drops package.

Cocaine was sold over the counter in the US until 1914. This I learn from a blog post I uncovered after Googling “Cocaine toothache”:

Weed, Booze, Cocaine and Other Old School “Medicine” Ads

It carries also a lot of great images, which remind us of the human tendency to change our opinion on everything and celebrate our deep need to ban stuff. So, I also celebrate Google’s ability to find everything.