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Painkillers in the 1940s...?



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Wed Jul 06, 2011 7:44 am
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Ellen says...



In my story, a student at a school has fallen out a window and all the students have access to is the school first aid kit. They want to give this poor guy some painkillers, so what sort of painkiller would they have access to? Would there be morphine in the kit, or... what would they be able to use?

Thank you!
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Wed Jul 06, 2011 1:56 pm
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Kale says...



Morphine was commonly used as a cough suppressant in addition to being a painkiller, so it's a pretty good bet that there would be morphine or morphine-derived painkillers available. Then again, they began pulling morphine from public use around that time if I recall correctly... The school may still have morphine, though, since schools are cheap and rarely clean out their first aid kits (from what I've seen).

Anyways. Aspirin is another long-time staple, though depending on how wounded the student is, giving him aspirin could be a very bad idea is it thins the blood, leading to a drop in blood pressure in addition to a potential bleed-out.

Other than that, there really weren't that many painkillers. Still aren't.
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Princessence: A LMS Project
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Thu Jul 07, 2011 6:25 am
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Ellen says...



Thank you very much, that was very helpful :)
I also looked up the answer on google, and I'm pleased to say that google supported your answer. Good on you!
If writers wrote as carelessly as some people talk, then adhasdh asdglaseuyt[bn[pasdlgkhasdfasdf.
- Lemony Snicket
  








"The trouble with Borrowing another mind was, you always felt out of place when you got back to your own body, and Granny was the first person ever to read the mind of a building. Now she was feeling big and gritty and full of passages. 'Are you all right?' Granny nodded, and opened her windows. She extended her east and west wings and tried to concentrate on the tiny cup held in her pillars."
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