Salt Requirements - High & Low Blood Pressure Message Board

Lenin · 02-05-2005, 08:32 AM

I am revisiting my PRINCIPLES OF INTERNAL MEDICINE, circa 1958 (1800 pages). What fun. Treatment for BP was phenobarbitol 3x a day...can you IMAGINE, how comatose the "victims" must have been.

And the RICE DIET:
At least 8 weeks of nothing but rice which gave you
200 mg. of sodium PER DAY, 25 Gm protein and 2000 non-protein calories (so a 2100 calorie diet- ALL RICE.)
At the time the AHA recommended that people with hypertension get NO MORE than 500mg. sodium per day day in/day out.
I get more than that merely WALKING through the canned food aisle at ShopRite.

Incidentally, 1958 may have been the year that thiazides were patented, it's close.

I HAD an early 40's version of the PIM (at nearly 3000pages) too but it "disappeared"...they treated syphilis with MERCURY!

I guess we will all laugh 50 years from now (those that are left, not me

) reading through antiquated methodology in the 2005 PIM, if books still exist.

It's so wonderful though to read a topic in a textbook from start to finish, rather than the piecemeal droppings that Google considers noteworthy, or is paid to place near the top of its listing.

ARIZONA73 · 02-05-2005, 05:19 PM

Lenin,

That's all very interesting, those old medical journals. I wonder what we would find in journals which were written even earlier! And speaking of mercury, were you aware that Abraham Lincoln was prescribed medication for depression called "blue mass" before he became president? It's main ingredient was mercury, which caused him to have fits of rage and demonstrate neurobehavioral effects consistent with mercury poisoning. It was said that he quite possibly may have absorbed as much as 750mcg mercury from a single pill. Fortunately he decided to stop taking these pills, and the symptoms went away.

Yes, no doubt when people read through our modern day medical journals 50 or 100 years from now, they too will no doubt shake their heads in disbelief regarding many methods of treatment employed today. Scary thought, isn't it?