Got asthma? Have a ciggie
QUESTION In the Fifties, chemists sold packets of ‘herbal cigarettes’ for the relief of catarrh. What kind of herbs did they contain? In ABOUT 1880, smoking herbal cigarettes become a craze in Europe and the U.S., and they were sold by many companies, such as Blosser’s, Dr Guild’s, Eliotts, Green Mountain, Kellogg’s, Kinsman’s, Marshall’s, Page’s and Schiffmann’s Asthmador.
They were marketed for more or less any respiratory condition, including asthma, chronic bronchitis , whooping cough, cholera, croup, catarrh and hay fever.
The cigarettes contained crushed and dried herbs from the nightshade family of plants called solanaceae, which included datura strammonium, atropa belladonna, the hyoscyamus niger and Lobelia inflata.
The key active ingredient was Atropine, an alkaloid that causes significant decreases in airway resistance in the lungs, making breathing easier. Atropine is derived from Atropos, one of the three Fates who, according to Greek mythology, chose how a person was to die.
Despite the discovery of epinephrine in 1900 and the invention of the electric nebuliser in the Thirties, which allowed refined atropine and epinephrine to be administered at home, asthma cigarettes were still available in the late Fifties and sales remained high.
This i s probably because the early nebulisers were bulky, fragile and expensive. But in 1957 the inhaler was introduced, which could allowed the delivery of a controlled, cheap dose of epinephrine.
Herbal cigarettes remained available in the shops until 1985, but the end came due to growing concerns that teenagers were buying these cigarettes not for asthma relief but for their hallucinogenic effects.
A study, The Clinical Pharmacology Of A Herbal Asthma Cigarette, by H. L. Elliot and J. L. Reid, was commissioned by the BMA and published in the British Journal Of Clinical Pharmacology in 1980. The researchers concluded that ‘an overdose of asthma cigarettes is manifestly capable of producing pharmacological ef f ects (hallucinations, delirium, tachycardia)’.
They also concluded that ‘while it did alleviate asthma, the amount of active drug reaching the bronchial tree must be variable and unpredictable.’
Paul Wallace, newcastle-upon-Tyne.
QUESTION
Attached to a number of normal road signs are black-bordered yellow rectangles containing various black geometric shapes. What are they, and what are they for? THE four Emergency Diversion Route signs, a rectangle with yellow background with a black circle, square, diamond or triangle, are to assist drivers in leaving when an incident has closed a motorway.
Information is put on a gantry prior to a clear exit and guides drivers through other roads to get back on to the motorway. The signs are strategically placed and drivers are advised to follow them through roads with which they might not be familiar. The symbols can be solid or lined.
The signs were first used in the Eighties. Until then police had the task of diverting traffic from the motorway and possibly using other officers to divert through town or country. This used manpower and was slow to bring into operation.
When the signs first appeared on the motorway, t e mporary s i gns were strategically placed to assist drivers in getting back on the motorway.
Again it took time to place these signs. The fixed Diversion Route Signs were included in the January 1993 edition of The Highway Code.
John Dowell, retired police officer and current advanced Examiner
for the iaM, London W12.
QUESTION
What is the origin of the name Uruguay ? THE modern names of Paraguay and Uruguay are derived from the language of the warlike Guarani people, whose name means ‘fighter’.
The true significance of the Guarani word uruguay is effectively lost, leading to a wide variety of proposed translations.
The only element that can be firmly established is the final –y, meaning ‘water’ or ‘river’, indicating the name was applied to the Uruguay river rather than the entire country. Otherwise t he etymology is uncertain. One theory relates to a kind of freshwater mussel, winkle or periwinkle found in the river, which in Guarani was called urugua. The river was therefore named uruguay, or ‘river of shellfish’. Another popular version states t hat the name refers to a flamboyant species of bird living along the river, known as uru.
Gua can mean ‘to proceed or originate from’, so Uru- gua- y would mean ‘water where the uru comes from’. The official meaning according to the Uruguay government is ‘river of painted birds’, but confusingly a modern Guarani-Spanish dictionary defines uru as the heath hen or female of the black grouse, neither of which could be considered colourful.
David Rayner, Canterbury, Kent.
QUESTION
What is the most amusing sporting advice anyone has heard from a spectator? FURTHER to earlier answers, in the Seventies and Eighties I was a football referee and served as a linesman in what was then the Football League.
I was appointed to Liverpool vs Sheffield Wednesday at Anfield and was on the far side opposite the dugouts where the seating came all the way down to the touchline, so I was close to the fans.
There was a spell of three attacks by Sheffield Wednesday forwards in as many minutes, each resulting in a very close decision for no offside. Play then switched to the other end and I took the opportunity to blow my nose when a wag shouted out: ‘It’s your f****** eyes that want wiping, not your nose.’
Also, I was refereeing Kirby Town who played in a bowl-like arena. There were hardly any spectators, and Kirby were not playing well. Their manager was frustrated with his players, and his bellowing was reverberating round the ground.
A couple of the players said to me: ‘We know we’re not playing well, ref, but could you do something about him?’
So at a convenient stoppage I went over to him and suggested he toned down his volume a bit. He politely apologised and said he would. I turned to carry on with play when his voiced boomed out behind me: ‘If he can f****** hear me, why can’t you?’ It was comedy like this that made being a referee worthwhile. David Scrimshaw, Cheadle, Cheshire.
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