Things you could order over 50 years ago that you can't order now !

[buckeyefarmer]

There are gas stations everywhere. I have yet to see one with an electric car charger as an option. Are these stations forbidden, as a franchise, to offer that?

One gas station I visit has a row of chargers.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Lindane was something that we used to buy at the local feed and seed. The stuff worked better than anything we have today.​

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It used to be a great shampoo for crabs too. Then they found out that one exposure to lindane doubled your chance of brain cancer, and the stuff is fiercely persistent.

 

[BravoXray]

It used to be a great shampoo for crabs too. Then they found out that one exposure to lindane doubled your chance of brain cancer, and the stuff is fiercely persistent.

Gee, I never saw crab with hair!

 

[ultrarunner]

Phisohex (sp) is another one that was the hospital standard for many years…

 

[tallyho8]

Another one you can't buy is Benzedrine inhalers. Benzedrex inhalers used to have benzedrine around 1950 but too many people started using them to get high.

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

Maybe it's already been mentioned but Chlorodane. Years ago building I had business in got termites. I called an exterminator who was checking everything out and I said I still have some Chlorodane. He said then you don't need us! That's the best there ever was.
My Dad would put it in a watering can and go all around our house foundation. We never saw an ant, spider...any bug in the house.
I don't think it was that dangerous either.

 

[ultrarunner]

Yes… it was the goto for termites for decades.

Still made but not sold in the United States.

My Pest guy said still legal for fire ants but no registered product available…

 

[Oaktree]

Phisohex (sp) is another one that was the hospital standard for many years…

That name sounds familiar, wasn't it some sort of face-cleaning solution to fight acne? I had it pretty bad as a teen, pretty sure it was something I'd tried.

 

[ultrarunner]

Physiderm might be what you remember?

 

[ponytug]

Maybe it's already been mentioned but Chlorodane. Years ago building I had business in got termites. I called an exterminator who was checking everything out and I said I still have some Chlorodane. He said then you don't need us! That's the best there ever was.
My Dad would put it in a watering can and go all around our house foundation. We never saw an ant, spider...any bug in the house.
I don't think it was that dangerous either.

Effective, definitely. Safe... not so much in my book;

"Like other chlorinated cyclodiene insecticides, chlordane is classified as an organic pollutant hazardous for human health. It is resistant to degradation in the environment and in humans/animals and readily accumulates in lipids (fats) of humans and animals.[6] Exposure to the compound has been linked to cancers, diabetes, and neurological disorders."​

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlordane ​

It is particularly toxic to fish, with an LD50 (lethal dose to kill half the population) of 22 parts per billion.

All of the related molecules, heptachlor, nonachlor, aldrin, dieldrin, and endrin are also banned. They preferentially accumulate in fat, and then whenever the fat is metabolized, e.g. during fasting, or illness, they gets released in the body. That is probably why it is a neurotoxin, accumulating in the fat around nerve cells.

I don't miss the Shell "No Pest" strips either.

All the best,

Peter

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

We used it all the time, no one had cancer. I can see grandfather next door, a physician, using it in a pump sprayer spraying chestnut and fruit trees, Chlorodane raining down all over him. He lived to be quite old, never cancer, diabetes, etc. Who knows...just lucky or did Laboratory rats drink 1/2 pint a day getting cancer after a few years?

 

[Larry Caldwell]

I still have a few pounds of lead arsenate insecticide if you want to put some on your vegetables.

 

[ponytug]

We used it all the time, no one had cancer. I can see grandfather next door, a physician, using it in a pump sprayer spraying chestnut and fruit trees, Chlorodane raining down all over him. He lived to be quite old, never cancer, diabetes, etc. Who knows...just lucky or did Laboratory rats drink 1/2 pint a day getting cancer after a few years?

Well, everybody is different. For most of the chlorinated organic chemicals, how a person's body responds often depends on which set of enzymes you have for degrading chlorinated organic chemicals (cytochrome P-450s). Different ones make the chlorinated organics more or less toxic.

The trouble with rat studies for human diseases is that human and rat/mouse metabolism is quite different, so it is hard to know in advance if the rodent result is informative. The data that I mentioned above comes from human exposure.

I worked for a guy that did studies on one chlorinated organic chemical. Lethal to rats at the part per billion level, so the feeding studies had to be done at the part per trillion level. The rats got all sorts of cancers. Then a DDT plant had some safety equipment fail, cooking up a big batch of the chemical in question, and then the pressure tank exploded, dosing the surrounding countryside. I expected everyone within miles to die instantly. Instead a few got chloracne and over the years they had a slightly higher than normal rate of certain cancers, but nothing like the rats, despite exposure levels thousand to millions of times higher than the rats. My moral of the story was that one has to be quite careful with animal studies if you want accuracy. (Seveso disaster)

Penicillin is lethal to guinea pigs at low doses. Good thing penicillin wasn't tested in Guinea pigs until after it had been shown to work well in humans.

Not that I think that organic foods are entirely safe either, most organic foods contain more mycotoxins and phytotoxins than conventionally grown foods. Personally, I try to buy local organic when possible, but don't sweat it. I think either way there is some risk. I avoid roadside stalls that aren't selling local foods, or look like it fell of the back of the truck, but I digress.

Anyone remember carbon tetrachloride fire extinguishers?

All the best,

Peter

 

[Larry Caldwell]

A couple years ago they found out one of the chemicals in tires was lethal to salmon in the ppb level.

Carbon tet used to be the favored dry cleaning fluid. Dry cleaner workers swam in the stuff, and you could smell it on your clothes when you picked them up. I gave an old carbon tet extinguisher to our local fire department for their extinguisher museum.

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

Years ago I frequented a place that sold government surplus. I bought this stainless steel container just because it was so heavy. At home I removed a screw in plug and mercury came out. So I filled a couple mason jars and stored it upstairs in garage. Years later noticed tops has eaten away and a lot had evaporated!
I also got these small lead lined containers. I never knew what was inside except it glowed in the dark...some green, other's blue. I guess I'm lucky to be alive!

 

[JethroB]

Phisohex (sp) is another one that was the hospital standard for many years…

That was our face wash for acne as teens. My dad had access to it for us. Dangerous?


“pHisoHex, (which contained 3% hexachlorophene - 3 times the legal limit imposed in 1972),[6] became available as a prescription body wash.”

Huh, I learned something today. Thanks

 

[Dftodd]

There are gas stations everywhere. I have yet to see one with an electric car charger as an option. Are these stations forbidden, as a franchise, to offer that?

I saw my first charging station last week. It was in a strip mall parking lot near the north shore of Oahu. Haven't seen one here in Arkansas.

 

[JasperFrank]

Of the may gas stations I visit in the Eugene/Springfield area, there isn't one, that also has an EV recharge station.

 

[Jstpssng]

Of the may gas stations I visit in the Eugene/Springfield area, there isn't one, that also has an EV recharge station.

Are you in Oregon? There are 177 charging stations in the Eugene area. Eugene, Oregon EV Charging Stations | PlugShare

 

[Larry Caldwell]

That was our face wash for acne as teens. My dad had access to it for us. Dangerous?


“pHisoHex, (which contained 3% hexachlorophene - 3 times the legal limit imposed in 1972),[6] became available as a prescription body wash.”

Huh, I learned something today. Thanks

Back when abortion was illegal, college girls inserted a catheter through the cervix and filled the uterus with pHisohex. It was an effective technique that did not risk bleeding. They didn't know about toxicity of hexachlorophene. I'm sure they can find a safer substitute now that dorm room abortions are coming back into style.