A Social History of the Minor Tranquilizers

An historical account chronicling the invention, sale, use and public reaction to such minor tranquillizers as Valium, Librium and Miltown. It depicts the complexities of tranquillizer use, showing how these minor tranquillizers rose and fell from popularity among prescribers and takers.

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A Social History of the Minor Tranquilizers presents the first historical account chronicling the invention, sale, use, and public reaction to minor tranquilizers such as Valium, Librium, and Miltown. In a clearly written book that depicts the complexities of tranquilizer use, Smith shows how the minor tranquilizers rose to and fell from popularity among prescribers and takers through the use of research data, historical and anecdotal information, and sociological materials--media, marketing approaches, and social discourse. Smith enables readers to understand better what and how mistakes were made during this drug-taking phenomenon in hopes of avoiding the same detrimental cycle and deriving greater benefit from new drugs and medicines as they are introduced. This is a valuable social history which should be read by practicing physicians and pharmacists, medical historians and ethicists, and medical and pharmacy faculty. Medical sociologists and psychologists will find this volume to have significant impact in their understanding as will laypersons interested in the issues which continue to surround and permeate the use of minor tranquilizers in our society.