At the
beginning of the 19th century society was still mostly split between
the upper-class elite and the working class, but as machines became more and
more prevalent in places of industry there became less and less of a divide
between the two classes. The
white-collar worker became a reality as machines began replacing what had
previously required the work of men. So
with machines now doing the work there was a great increase in production at
factories. Increases in production lead
to a need for an increase in sales and marketing and from there the widespread
of the white-collar job was initially formed.
These white-collar business workers no longer had to spend upwards of
twelve hours a day shoveling coal, molding iron, or working in textile
mills. This left them and their families,
who were now making a greater salary than their ancestors had received, with
much leisure time: a concept that had not even crossed the minds of the
generations before. No longer did the
patriarch arrive home after a long day and immediately seek the sanctity and
comfort of the bed. Families went out
together, socialized with other families, and mostly shopped. They had acquired all this money with which
they had previously not be privy to and what better way to rid oneself of
excess than to exchange it for the goods which one desires.
With the new
lifestyle of the business class worker came a tax on the mind. Chopping wood is not intellectual stressful
however many blocks one halves, but punching numbers all of the day can have
quite the toll both emotionally and in turn physically. This effect has been widely attributed to the
ailment neurasthenia. What many would
today attribute to simply stress or too much work was purported by many in the
19th century to be a case of an imbalance or imperfection in the
body of the worker. In less than a
generation an entire new societal class structure had been created in which the
mind was more important than the body.
“… a strong body came second to a strong character… physical health was
important, but it was not as conscious a pursuit for most men as were moral
strength, religious piety, and cultivated intelligence.”
The
solution, which would be presented by many men throughout the 19th
century, to this epidemic of sorts was that of exercise for the muscles of its sufferers’
bodies. The masses had tired of the
difficulty of Turnen, gymnastics, and
the imbalance towards the upper body which it created. And Calisthenics, while easily accessible and
performed by everybody, had little effect on the strength of ones body and
seemingly only enabled one flexibility.
The only way to correct this imbalance of the body was to exercise all
the muscles of the body equally to unlock the stores of energy hidden away on
the inside. “Only machines could power
modern bodies by reaching into their reserves and bringing to the surface ‘an
actual deposit of organic strength.’” (49)
Having been
absorbed into the machine-age during the mid to late 19th century,
the American public would have been acting out of character to not put the same
stock into the next big technological advance, electricity, as they had
previously. For decades people had been
surrounded by the miracle cure for their ailments, be it of opiates, cocaine
infused products, old wives remedies, or gypsy oils. The better the salesman, the better the
product. Electricity permeated the
popular culture of the late 19th century. Telegraphs, telephones, lights, and such were
not yet a part of everyday life for most people but were a wonder
none-the-less. People were amazed and
perplexed by the ability to communicate seemingly instantaneously with a person
hundreds of miles away and the idea of ridding the world of the night by the
use of lights. While the science of electricity
was not known by most the lore was.
Electricity was a magical being.
It seemed to have limitless potential and infinite applications. It is not surprising that the public would be
taken away by the products which incorporated electricity and proposed to cure
all ailments when one is able to see the susceptibility of the people of this
time. The fact that there was no medical
proof for electricity’s effectiveness on the body made no difference for these
people where amazed by electricity all by itself so why could it not be the be
all and end all cure? Combine this with
the fact that its continued success pretty much forced those in the medical
field to change their ways, if not their beliefs, in order to compete with the
cheaper and more popular mechanisms and electricity was destined to have a
lasting effect even though unintended by its architects.
“Energy
drinks” are merely soft drinks purporting to provide its consumer with a
bountiful amount of energy to enable
mental alertness and physical ability.
While these drinks do contain energy, literally calories, they contain
much less than is typically found in any nutritional food. Calories are what power the body and give it
energy, and these drinks usually contain such small amounts that they wouldn’t
actually have any affect. What these
drinks do usually contain are stimulants such as caffeine which mislead the
mind into readiness mode. This caffeine
gives the brain a jolt for the short period of time. Not only is caffeine meaningless as food
source, it is highly addictive and detrimental to ones health and
wellbeing. In addition to caffeine this
drinks often times contain previously unknown “natural” supplements. The most common and most advertised of these
ingredients are guarana and taurine.
Guarana only grows naturally in the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest and its
main output is caffeine of which it contains about three times as much as a
coffee bean. Taurine is a naturally
occurring acid, in bile, and has
been shown to have absolutely no benefit whatsoever as energy-giving. These energy drinks advertise their ability
to replenish their constituents’ bodies with a boost of energy with vitamins
and strange sounding ingredients hoping to give the on-the-go consumer the idea
that these ingredients are of benefit to them.
However, it seems as though these drinks may actually do more harm than
good. It has been shown that caffeine
can have long-term detrimental effects on the cardiovascular system, it would
not be a great leap to believe that those special
ingredients would be just as bad given they have the same mind tricking
effects.
This article originally written February 26th, 2008 for OU HSCI 1133 - Science and Popular Culture.
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