helvella – Historical Context of Thyroid Treatment in the UK
dropbox.com/s/tc195gspp5hdw...
This document has come about because I could never remember which UK levothyroxine product was which after they had changed branding several times over the years! Current day products are easy enough – and documentation is readily available. But which companies changed names? Was today’s product inherited when one company bought another? Or did they develop it themselves?
In order to answer that, I started searching – and found lots of copies of The Chemist and Druggist publication stretching back well into the nineteenth century – continuously published since 1859.
They are fascinating. We can see the changes over the years from early use of fresh thyroid glands, through desiccated thyroid, thyroxin-sodium extract from animal thyroids, synthesis and manufacture of levothyroxine and liothyronine, and on…
Archived copies are in the Internet archive (the “way back machine”):
archive.org/details/chemist...
The current Chemist and Druggist site is here:
Please remember that this is for historical interest. Much has changed over the years. We often now see as dangerous, sometimes lethal, practices which were highly regarded at the time. Also, much of the quoted material is of advertising copy – which should be taken with a pinch of salt rather than a spoonful of sugar. Many ideas have been overtaken by scientific research. Others would be impossible to follow for all sorts of reasons. Further, you cannot assume that two things are the same just because a product or technique has the same name as something current day.
Having found this information, reading through some was fascinating. I suspected that others might also find it interesting to browse.
As for measurements! Well, the old pharmacy weights and measures might have made sense to someone trained in their use. But to those of us without that experience, they are a nightmare. There are differences between European, British and USA systems.
There is much in the archive of interest that I have missed, or omitted as repetitious.
I have, so far, covered around 1920 to 2000. Older volumes are generally much more difficult to search and find the nuggets of interest.
I have still not produced my documentation of what products were available when.
Apologies that the formatting is not suited to small screens. In order to keep the images and text together, I had to use large pages (A3).
Further, this is a BIG document. Even as a PDF it is well over thirty megabytes and over 170 pages.
