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Some of the most influential accomplishments that have occurred in recent years involve solving problems that affect the quality of life for an individual. Weight-loss medications, psychotropic drugs to treat mental illness, and revolutionary pain medications all help to improve your life in subtle, everyday ways. For men, one of the most significant issues that affect their quality of life is impotence.
What is Erectile Dysfunction?
Impotence, also known as erectile dysfunction, is a condition that affects a man’s ability to achieve and erection, and to maintain it to its ultimate end of ejaculation. Most men, if they are honest, have had an occurrence of impotence at some point in their lives. Though it is most common in older men, doubtless due to health and physical issues that are contributing factors, younger men can also have issues with impotence.
The causes of erectile dysfunction are many and varied. The most common reasons for erectile dysfunction are psychological in nature. Stress and depression may lead to temporary impotence, and the stressful effects of losing a job or starting a new relationship can be the key reason for the condition developing, especially in younger men.
Psychological causes were once thought to be the only causes of impotence, and treatments of the times reflected that perception. Today, we know that many physical conditions and diseases can directly impact a man’s ability to get and keep an erection. Diabetes is a noteworthy culprit, with men suffering from this chronic disease the most likely to develop problems with impotence. Circulation problems and cardiac issues can also have a significant effect, decreasing the quality of blood flow in the body, including the penis. Many chronic diseases that damage the liver, kidneys, nerves and blood vessels also have links to erectile dysfunction. Finally, hormonal problems, such as a low amount of testosterone, will likely result in some incidence of impotence.
The things that you consume can also have a profound affect the body, decreasing sexual drive. Alcohol and cigarettes depress the nervous system and inhibit the relaxation of smooth muscles that are essential in achieving an erection and maintaining it. Many prescription medications have side effects that include erectile dysfunction, among them anti-hypertensives, anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, and individual medications such as lithium, digoxin and cimetidine.
Physicians have been treating erectile problems since ancient times. In fact, the first mention of impotence as a health issue was around 2000 B.C., among the papyrus scrolls of Egypt. Throughout history, physicians and apothecaries struggled to find solutions to the problem. After all, in addition to being a psychological frustration and embarrassment, impotence was also grounds for divorce under Catholic Law, as well as the laws of many other faiths and cultures. In ancient times, the primary treatments for impotence issues would be herbal and natural. Ginger, truffles and other herbs and plants were among the “cures”, as were some unusual animal treatments involving goose tongue, vulture lung, or rooster testicle. Even today, many parts of the world swear by these animal-based treatments. These so-called “cures” for erectile dysfunction have remained in such high demand that many of the animals that are used to make these products, including tigers and rhinoceros, having been hunted nearly to extinction.
The early 19th century brought mechanics into the picture, with technology offering more guaranteed solutions to the immediate problem. The mechanical penis pump was invented during this time, and the basic technology of these new pumps is still present in modern-day pumps. By the latter part of the 19th century, gimmicky cures were becoming more popular for a variety of illnesses, including erectile dysfunction. Radioactive tonics, poisons and even electric shocks were used with alarming frequency.
The Role of Psychology in Erectile Dysfunction
As the 20th century dawned, so did the golden age of psychology. The psychological connection to impotence had been noted before, but during this time it became more of a focus for treatment. Sigmund Freud proposed that difficulties with achieving and erection, and keeping it, were more deeply rooted in the mind than in the rest of the body. Freud believed that repressed desires and neuroses were more direct causes for issues with impotence and that dealing with those issues would resolve any erectile difficulties.
By mid-century, Alfred Kinsey revealed in his report Sexual Behavior in the Human Male that the incidence of impotence among men is far more prevalent than anyone had been aware of. The physiological causes of impotence were becoming more solidly defined, but it would still be decades before a medication would be found that could directly help men with erectile dysfunction.
6 Extreme Treatments for Impotence in the pre-Viagra Days
When scientists discover a new substance, it is almost universally used to attempt to cure illnesses and restore health. Unfortunately, many of these substances had toxic properties and many could even directly cause anemia and cancers. That did not stop men seeking relief from the embarrassment and stress of erectile dysfunction from using many of these cures, and physicians and apothecaries of the 19th and 20th centuries were only too glad to oblige.
When radium was discovered in 1898, it immediately became the go-to cure for a wide variety of health problems, including impotence. Though radium was sometimes consumed as a water-based drink, the most common method of delivery for men with erectile problems was as a suppository. Radium was also the principal component of the Radi-Endocrinator, a rectangle of metal mesh filled with radium that was suspended in a pouch along with the male wearer’s reproductive organs. The incidence of testicular cancer, birth defects and sterility that must have resulted from these treatments we undoubtedly very high.
Electrical therapies were used consistently throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Early devices involved charges that were inserted into the rectum and urethra, creating an electrical charge that was meant to jolt the penis back to life, as it were. Electrical belts used the same scientific principle, but worked from the outside, with wire coils delivering the charge directly to the external organs.
Today, strychnine is the most common ingredient in rat poison, but in the early 20th century it was believed to have the power to cure a variety of ailments, including erectile dysfunction. Physicians prescribed tonics containing strychnine as a means to cure impotence, and these physicians were by no means disreputable. Some doctors did note, however, that the effect of the strychnine tonics was limited and that the patients often worsened and sometimes died in the end.
Many of the more unusual treatments for impotence come from the East. In addition to the herbal remedies, and the tiger penises and horns of rhinoceros used in tonics, ancient Eastern medical traditions in China and India recommended drinking one’s own urine as a means to cure impotence. Urine would contain small amounts of the male hormones androgen and testosterone, but at such insignificant levels as to be essentially useless as a treatment.
None of these treatments had any lasting positive effects on the body, and the search for an effective treatment for erectile dysfunction continued.
In 1985, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals was trying to develop a new medication to be used for treating hypertension and heart failure. They planned to develop a drug that would act on a specific enzyme in the walls of blood vessels that controls nitric oxide signaling, causing the blood vessels to dilate. This dilation would reduce the blood pressure within the vessels, thereby reducing the strain on the heart.
In the later part of the decade, one molecule emerged that looked to be particularly useful in treating these heart conditions. The compound was named sildenafil citrate, its generic name; its trade name would be Viagra.
During the first clinical trials of the medication, it was deemed to be safe but had little effect on angina. What it did have was an interesting side effect: the men who were a part of the clinical trials indicated that they were having more frequent and lasting erections.
After several years of trials, Pfizer applied for and received licensing to produce Viagra for the treatment of erectile dysfunction. Since then, millions of prescriptions have been written, and today over 40 tons of Viagra are prescribed and consumed by male patients with erectile dysfunction every year.
The discovery of Viagra and the effect that’s its production has had on the lives of millions of men around the world cannot be understated. After centuries of trial and errors, and countless treatments and cures ranging from the simple to the obscure and even downright torturous, physicians may finally offer men who are suffering from erectile dysfunction a real solution. Today, the opportunity to overcome your erectile dysfunction and improve the quality of your life is inextricably linked to Viagra, the little blue pill.
For more information about Viagra, as well as other treatments for erectile dysfunction, please visit us at eDrugstore.
Author Bio:
Gabriella Messina is an author who has written online content on a variety healthcare and wellness subjects, including fitness and nutrition, erectile dysfunction treatments, and other medical topics.
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