By Dr. Royal Lee
Summary: Who knows better the ultimate side effects of pharmaceutical drugs than an embalmer? In this thought-provoking article from 1962, Dr. Royal Lee presents and discusses remarks by professor Ray E. Slocum of the Dodge Chemical Company, who details the decrepit physical condition of bodies belonging to people who had taken drugs such as thyroid medications, diabetic aids, tranquilizers, and steroids while alive. Among the hazardous effects of longtime use of such prescriptions, Slocum says, are ulcers, cirrhosis, nerve damage, kidney failure, fatty liver, and intestinal walls “so thin…they cannot withstand the injection of embalming fluids.” Worse, pharmaceuticals often do nothing more than ameliorate the symptoms of a condition, meaning if the deathly side effects of a drug don’t fell a patient, the illness the drug is masking eventually will. From Let’s Live magazine, 1962.
