From Spanish fever to Covid, one hundred years of "miraculous cures"

Newspaper advertising spaces were full of them. Zarri Toothpaste ensured "disinfectant properties" and it seemed to be no less the Pim cologne which "refreshes and kills microorganisms". Even the "fresh beer or real French cognac" of the Premiata Gambrinus company promised miracles, recalling that "it is now established that alcoholic beverages, if consumed to a limited extent, are among the best preventive remedies".

That was a world that emerged from the most tragic of wars and which, between the spring of 1918 and the summer of 1919, had to face three waves of a flu ("grippe" was the term used) called "Spanish". An illness that announced itself with muscle aches, exhaustion, chills, whooping cough, and which in the most serious cases - degenerated into pneumonia and hemorrhagic fever - led to death in a few days. In Europe the victims were three million, 700 thousand in Italy, 13 thousand in Sardinia.

Prophylaxis required the isolation of the sick, the ventilation of the premises, the use of a mask; but there were no specific cures, only therapies attempted with state quinine, bloodletting, serotherapy (ie the administration of plasma with antibodies to a healed person). Ancient and new remedies walked hand in hand, there were those who recommended snuff, some boiled vinegar compresses, some sugar (then a food subjected to rationing) in hot milk. The latter had to be a curative solution particularly used in the towns of Sardinia, to look at the number of correspondences from the countries with the title "The lack of sugar". On December 4, 1918, for example, the Unione Sarda publishes the correspondence from Sorgono with the appeal «to the illustrious Prefect of Cagliari (until 1927 the island was divided into only two provinces: Cagliari and Sassari, ed. ), so that it wants to intervene so that this country too has what is unjustly denied us ». The fact was that "almost all the towns in the province of Cagliari have had sugar," but not Sorgono. "The need - wrote the correspondent - is even more felt in these days that the epidemic is already claiming its victims and entire families are lying in bed".

A century has passed, science and medicine have made enormous strides, but today as then there are those who participate in the race for miraculous remedies for any evil, there are those who cultivate a reckless faith in the magical and saving power of potions and supplements.

A little less than a month ago, it was the end of August, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration), the US government agency that deals with drugs, published a rather incisive tweet: «You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Really, stop it ». It is that in the myriad of remedies advertised as "miraculous against Covid" on social media and on certain terrapiattisti no vax and no mask sites, the use of ivermectin was taking a worrying turn. It is an anthelmintic drug, that is used against intestinal worms; it is usually used on animals but in certain solutions it can also be given to people to eliminate worms and parasites (for example lice). Given that to date, despite studies and clinical trials, there is no scientific evidence of its anti-Covid efficacy, it should be remembered that the drug was in the list of home therapies recommended by the Region to family doctors (hence the reaction of the Orders of Cagliari and Oristano), and that - if used without any prescription, especially to treat or prevent infections or diseases that have nothing to do with its use - can have very serious side effects: nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, skin rashes , swelling of the face and limbs, drop in blood pressure, dizziness, hallucinations and convulsions.

Deworming medicine, however, is only the latest discovery of the false "miraculous remedies" against the coronavirus attack. Remember when, in the first months of the pandemic, the hoax of mouthwash rinses circulated to stop the virus in the mouth? Then came the hot herbal teas «because the virus is inactivated at 26-27 ° C», the infusions of ginger or garlic; gargling with hot salted water or vinegar; the petroleum jelly on the nostrils, the jet of hot air from the hairdryer.

The truth is that certain miraculous remedies do not exist, but the bandwagon of swindlers, cheaters and acrobats ready to deceive the gullible, the ignorant, the desperate and the sick of intellectual arrogance (a category to which most of the no vax belong) has good wheels built. well before the advent of social media and the internet. In short, it is not a manifestation of our time and of this pandemic. It is a bandwagon that has traveled long distances even in distant times (and epidemics and plagues), in times of our more or less immediate past. A hundred years ago, for example, when the world emerged from the worst of wars and was in the grip of Spanish fever.