Word: demerol
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...reported no pain at all. The majority felt some pain, which they were "quite willing to tolerate in view of the exaltation accompanying conscious delivery." Some drugs were used, too. Only 35% had their babies without any anesthesia or painkilling drugs ; about half the rest had small doses of Demerol or whiffs of nitrous oxide (dentistry's "laughing gas"). The mothers were told to ask for drugs if they felt they needed them. Only 12% were not fully conscious...
...Demerol, a painkiller, may cause dizziness or nausea-and may be habit-forming...
Ribald allusions to "Doctor de Kruif" (Bacteriologist de Kruif has a Ph.D., no M.D.) were a stock joke at the A.M.A. Convention last fortnight. Last week in the A.M.A. Journal Federal Narcotics Commissioner H. J. Anslinger viewed with alarm De Kruif's latest discovery: Demerol ("God's Own Medicine-1946," Reader's Digest for June), a painkilling drug which acts much like morphine but is not, said De Kruif, habit-forming...
...protested Anslinger, many cases of Demerol addiction have been recorded. He forecast "a wave of Demerol addiction" if doctors and the public swallow De Kruif's "reckless and dangerous statements." First found in Germany in 1939, Demerol has been synthesized in the U.S. since 1941, was placed under federal narcotics control...
...Demerol is a synthetic painkiller and sedative introduced in Germany in 1939. It acts much as morphine does, is not as habit-forming. A British doctor recommends it in childbirth. Demerol's great advantage: the chemicals from which it is made are plentiful. Opium, from which morphine is extracted...