Roots, beans and leaves. A History of the Chemical Therapy of Parkinsonism till 1980

[silvestrov]

The attached link is a Doctor dissertation which examines Parkinson's disease therapies till 1980. It is a comprehensive 876 page document which goes into great detail. So if you want to hear the inside story of anticholinergics, amantadine, levodopa, mucuna pruriens, Benadryl, etc, etc, etc....this is for you. If you are only interested in specific topics do not despair. If you open the document with Acrobat 9 there is a search engine under the 'Edit' tab in the upper left corner. Open the tab and scroll down to 'Search'. Type in your word and hit enter. I am on page 300 and find it fascinating. To give you an idea as to its content the author examines all the past therapies and, believe it or not, at one point circa 1920 doctors thought inducing a fever was good for PD patients. What did they do? They gave PD patients malaria....you read that right.

I hope you find this interesting.

d-nb.info/96446392x/34

[KemptonD]

It is interesting to read that;

'Whatever the results being achieved by the medical treatment of parkinsonism, greater hope for a long term solution was being placed by the early 1960s in the possibilities of neurosurgery.'

My mother recalls discussions regarding surgery as a suggested treatment for her mother who had Parkinson's. The drugs administered at the time must not have provided much relief of my Grandmother's symptoms.

[999---666 in reply to KemptonD]

they were struggling to alleviate distress only, now they have tools and knowledge to understand the disease and human body's tools. just hope big pharma won't hijack body's smart tools.

[movinngroovin1]

Couldn't access it--sorry

[silvestrov in reply to movinngroovin1]

'Couldn't access it..' Does this mean the link would not open for you? Or, you do not have Adobe Acrobat 9 or Adobe Acrobat Reader DC to do searches within the document?

The file is 9.3 mb - small enough to email to another person or have on a cell phone to read - I have done both.

[movinngroovin1 in reply to silvestrov]

Long filed! What is the gist of it?

[BUZZ1397 in reply to movinngroovin1]

It should download as an Adobe file. Look to see if it is in the recent downloads.

[silvestrov]

An excerpt from page 345 in regards to the variable reactions of Parkinson's disease patients to any drug therapy:

"...individual responses to a drug varied too much in order to be able to predict outcome:"

"Now is just like lining up 3 or 4 men at a bar and giving them each 5 drinks out of the same bottle. One wants to fight everyone in the room. The second one wants to make love to the barmaid. The third one wants to sing. And the forth one passes out and falls asleep. now this it with the same medicine out of the same bottle under the same conditions."

[999---666]

not that shocking, I have a book that says statistics indicate malaria protects persons from developing cancer. fever activated immune system. led to interferon therapy.

[BUZZ1397]

I read therein that I might take just 50 mg 5HTP/24 hr for the benefit of defeating the warming that follows wearing off. I'll test it.

[BUZZ1397 in reply to BUZZ1397]

No, you have to take it every time, 1 dose per 24 hrs wouldn't do it 4 me.

[faridaro]

Very interesting that the dissertation mentions belladonna. Just this week looking through Russian alternative treatments I came across some recipe for mixture of belladonna root+activated charcoal boiled in white wine, supposedly developed by Bulgarian healer, Ivan Raev. I don't think it is worth of trying since belladonna is quite toxic, however I am amazed that it came up to my attention at the same time from such diverse sources.