Happy pills in America : from Miltown to Prozac

292 Pages·2010·2.209 MB·English

by  David Lowell Herzberg

Happy Pills in America
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Happy Pills in America
From Miltown to Prozac
DAVID HERZBERG
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore
∫ 2009 The Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2009
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
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The Johns Hopkins University Press
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Herzberg, David L. (David Lowell)
Happy pills in America : from Miltown to Prozac / by David Herzberg.
p. ; cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8018-9030-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8018-9030-6 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Psychotropic drugs—United States—History. 2. Psychotropic drugs—Social aspects—
United States. I. Title.
[DNLM: 1. Psychotropic Drugs—history—United States. 2. Psychotropic Drugs—
therapeutic use—United States. 3. Consumer Satisfaction—United States. 4. Culture—
United States. 5. Drug Industry—trends—United States. 6. History, 20th Century—
United States. QV 77.2 H582h 2008]
RM315.H52 2008
362.290973—dc22 2008007645
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For Alvar
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contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction. Medicine, Commerce, and Culture 1
1 Blockbuster Drugs in the Age of Anxiety 15
2 Listening to Miltown 47
3 Wonder Drugs and Drug Wars 83
4 The Valium Panic 122
5 Prozac and the Incorporation of the Brain 150
Conclusion. Better Living through Chemistry? 192
Appendix A. Medications Mentioned 205
Appendix B. Prescriptions for Psychiatric Drugs,
1955–2005 207
Notes 209
Index 275
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acknowledgments
A great many people helped make this book possible. My thanks begin
where the project did: with Paul Boyer, a generous mentor who advised
students to ‘‘follow their bliss’’ and look for history in unexpected places,
even if it took them away from his own areas of expertise (a di≈cult feat
given his many interests). Judy Leavitt’s warmth and excellent skepti-
cism helped orient me in the history of medicine and reminded me that
people, not ‘‘culture,’’ make history. Thanks too to those who read early
drafts of individual chapters, including Hiroshi Kitamura, Chris Wells,
Gwen Walker, and David Musto. I was very fortunate to have funding in
the project’s early stages from a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, and I owe
thanks for research support from the American Institute for the History
of Pharmacy, the University of Wisconsin History Department, and the
Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.
The University at Bu√alo has been an excellent place to research and
revise. Colleagues have been supportive, and department chairs work
hard to protect time for scholarship. The university’s Julian Park Fund
also helped defray publication costs. Susan Cahn provided moral sup-
port and invaluable comments at a late stage of revisions. Like most
historians I owe many thanks also to librarians, including those at Lock-
wood and the Health Sciences Library at SUNY Bu√alo, the Bu√alo
Public Library, the National Library of Medicine, and the New York
Academy of Medicine (the last being one of the only U.S. libraries that
did not cut out drug advertisements when they bound medical journals—
a circumstance that at least some of their sta√ must have regretted when
photocopying the gazillionth ad for me). I also have benefited from the
suggestions of anonymous reviewers for American Quarterly, the Bul-
letin of the History of Medicine, and the Johns Hopkins University Press.
I am lucky to have had the guidance and support of my editor at Hop-
kins, Jacqueline Wehmueller, who has been generous with her time and