Supplements are like time capsules from an age before restrictions on ingredients or claims, before government regulation and randomized controlled trials. Back in the 1800s, medications were marketed directly to consumers, often using personal testimony and a money-back guarantee, much as supplements are peddled today.
There were cocaine toothache drops (“instantaneous cure!”), syrups for colicky babies that were basically straight alcohol, and Piso’s Tablets for the treatment of the diseases of women — like “ulceration of the womb” — which contained cannabis and chloroform. Headache remedies were often spiked with opium. The original Coca-Cola was sold as a tonic for nerves and headaches and was a favorite of the temperance movement because it was alcohol free — though it did contain cocaine.
Some of these medicines may have actually made a baby stop crying or dulled a headache, but they were also dangerous, and often did not even have an ingredient list, so people didn’t know what they were taking. Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup was advertised as a cure for teething pain, with a wholesome portrait of a mother in a white nightgown snuggling in bed with her two extremely calm small children. But the syrup contained morphine, which would certainly have made children sleepy but also killed some of them.
In 1906, after decades of medication-related deaths, people started to think that the government really needed to do something to ensure the safety of what Americans put into their bodies. “Maybe we shouldn't have people getting addicted to opium, and little old ladies taking cocaine. Maybe there's a place for regulation here,” says journalist Dan Hurley, who wrote the definitive book on the supplement industry, Natural Causes: Death, Lies, and Politics in America’s Vitamin and Herbal Supplement Industry.
The result was the 1906 Pure Food and Drugs Act, which mandated that medicines list the presence of drugs and alcohol on their label and ensure the accuracy of their claims. This was enough to put many snake oil companies out of business, because it turned out most people did not actually want to drug their children to sleep.
But, according to Hurley’s book, the Food and Drug Administration as we know it didn’t really get going until 1938, after an antibiotic was laced with antifreeze, causing the long and painful deaths of 107 people, most of them children. No one had bothered to test the medication for safety. After that, Congress passed a law requiring drugs to prove their safety to the FDA before going on the market. This was right on time, as pharmaceuticals were multiplying, including antibiotics and vaccines that could cure or prevent many of the diseases that had stalked humans for all of history.