Cardiology

“Digitalis, quinidine, morphine, and nitroglycerin are the main cardiac drugs available to practitioners in the 1930s that are still used today. There were no antibiotics, potent diuretics, or antihypertensive agents. Congestive heart failure was treated with digitalis and diuretics (mercury compounds or purine derivatives like theophylline), but doctors knew these remedies had significant side effects or had to be administered by injection. Rest was a mainstay of therapy for heart failure and angina pectoris” (Fye 2, 77).