Article: Quick Fix Myths

Today's lard-melting body belts, creams, subliminal tapes, pills and
teas are just the latest in more than a century's worth of wishful
thinking, bad advice and chicanery. Examples from the past include:

1844: Oliver Halsted's patented Exercising Machine for relieving
dyspepsia consisted of a pair of mechanical horses that marched in
circles.

1892: George Burwell's Boston bon-contour obesity belt delivered zaps
of electricity.

1900: Jean Alban Bergonie's "passive ergotherapy" chair applied
electricity to clients' muscles, contracting them 100 times a minute.

1910: Phytoline weight-loss tablets contained arsenic, strychnine,
caffeine and pokeberries. Arsenic speeds up the digestive tract;
pokeberries act as a laxative.

1914: Gardner Reducing Machines pummelled the user between two rollers.

1920s: Lucky Strike promoted its cigarettes as diet aids: "Reach for a
Lucky instead of a sweet."

1935: Dinitrophenol, a chemical used in the manufacture of dyes,
insecticides and explosives, was sold as a diet pill. The rationale was
that workers in World War I munitions factories lost weight. Use fell
off by 1938, after several cases of death or temporary blindness.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

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Diva
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Completing 4 years of maintenance

OMG... this one from 1910 was the worse! I bet it caused weight loss..
decomposition can do that to ya if you aren't careful!

1910: Phytoline weight-loss tablets contained arsenic, strychnine,
caffeine and pokeberries. Arsenic speeds up the digestive tract;
pokeberries act as a laxative.

1914: Gardner Reducing Machines pummelled the user between two rollers.

1920s: Lucky Strike promoted its cigarettes as diet aids: "Reach for a
Lucky instead of a sweet."

1935: Dinitrophenol, a chemical used in the manufacture of dyes,
insecticides and explosives, was sold as a diet pill. The rationale was
that workers in World War I munitions factories lost weight. Use fell
off by 1938, after several cases of death or temporary blindness.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

--
Diva
********
Completing 4 years of maintenance