Word: ergot
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Abortion drugs come in two forms: 1) pills and 2) paste. To get around the law, the pills masquerade as something else (sample label: "An aid to delayed menstruation caused by cold or exposure to inclement weather"). They generally contain ergot, quinine, apiol oil or various exotic substances, none of which, doctors say, can possibly produce abortion. But in the large quantities with which desperate patients often dose themselves, they may be fatal...
When such simple remedies as aspirin fail, the standard treatment has been shots of ergotamine tartrate (Gynergen). But Gynergen, derived from ergot, a drug used to stimulate uterine contractions in childbirth, is almost a disease in itself. It slows the pulse, raises blood pressure, occasionally causes gangrene, may cause vomiting, pains in the legs, uterine cramps and suppression of menses...
...Proceedings of the Staff Meetings of the Mayo Clinic, Dr. Bayard T. Horton & coworkers point a way out of this miserable dilemma. Having tried it on 120 patients over three and a half years, they announced that a new derivative of ergot, dihydroergotamine, has all the virtues of Gynergen and almost none of its vices...
...Ergot, a fungus which grows in rye kernels, contains a score of medicinal factors. It is used mostly to start contractions of the uterus at childbirth. The fungus is difficult to separate from rye husks, is expensive to produce. Most of it came from Europe. About 20,000 Ib. were produced in the Middle West last year...