Doping and sports - 1880-1889
1880
In cycling, a mixture of cocaine and morphine was often used as doping.
1884
Professional 'walking' was a popular sport in the United States and England. This 'go-as-you please' contest often lasted six days and nights. The winner was the one who could present the greatest distance at the finish. During these ultramarathons, some participants bridged more than 500 miles (805 km). In 1884, the Englishman George Haezel (1844-?) was the first to walk 600 miles (966 km) in six days, earning 18,380 US Dollars, now worth $ 400,000. Evidently stimulants were perfectly suited in this sport. To keep their athlete upright, trainers used a variety of brews: from milk punch with champagne and brandy to belladonna, strychnine and morphine
1887
Cyclists eagerly used the so-called coca-wine. There were rumors about riders who were driving 172 km the first day, the second day 150 km and the third day 143 km.
1887
Two German officers managed to climb the Mädelergabel in the Bavarian Allgäu, drinking three days only coca wine and smoking coca cigarettes.
1887
Romanian chemist Lazär Edeleanu (1861-1941) synthesized the first amphetamine at the Humboldt University in Berlin. Because the psychotrope action of amphetamines was only discovered in the 1920s, little attention was paid to the discovery in 1887.
1889
The word 'doping' comes from English and is the gerund of the verb dope (= administering medicines). However, the ethymological origin comes from Afrikaans, the language of the Boeren in South Africa. At village celebrations the locals drank a strong gin, the so-called "Dop". De Boeren took over the word and used it for every drink with stimulating effect. From Afrikaans the word found its way to England, where it was eventually used for the stimulants in horse racing. When it first appeared in an English dictionary in 1889, it meant 'the administration of a mixture of opium and narcotics in race horses'. At the beginning of the 20th century, cocaine, morphine, strychnine and caffeine were also described as 'doping products'.
1889
Spread over three weeks, French physiologist and neurologist Charles-Edouard Brown-Sequard (1817-1894) injected himself ten subcutaneous injections of testicular extracts of dogs and guinea pigs. The first injection was the blood from the veins of the testes, the second was sperm and the third testicle fluid. Enthusiastically, he announced his findings in Paris at the meeting of the Society for Biology, where he claimed that he felt years younger, both physically and mentally, with renewed energy. A month after the last injection, however, he experienced a relapse to a 'state of weakness'. While most experts today believe that the 'rejuvenation' experienced by Brown-Sequard was a placebo effect, he was actually right. Not only with its rudimentary understanding of testicular functions, but also about the potential value of hormonal replacement or supplementation therapy. For these reasons he is called the father of modern endocrinology. Brown-Sequard offered his colleagues free samples of his 'testicular liquid' so they too could test them. In addition, several laboratories such as the Pasteur Institute in New York started to manufacture the extract. This produced a wave of experiments in the western world, in which testicle extracts were not only used for rejuvenation, but also for the treatment of a wide range of diseases.
