Book, Ten drugs: plants, powders, tablets that change the history of medicine[LS]

The use of drugs is one of the pillars of medicine. Drugs are important products not only for therapeutic purposes, but also for symbolic purposes — just think of the emergence of the pill or drugs for erectile dysfunction — and, evidently, economical. Behind the emergence of each medicine there is a story and also a combination of factors: new technologies, geopolitical changes, cultural issues, luck. This is the case, for example, of tranquilizers: discovered by accident by a chemist who was investigating penicillin preservatives, they were launched commercially in the 1950s and became fashionable in Hollywood, paving the way for antidepressants and other drugs.