I looked it up in the OED. The earliest recorded quote, from The Lancet of 16 December 1933, informs us that:
A new drug has recently been introduced into rhinology under the name of benzedrine. It is a synthetically prepared compound, the carbonate of benzyl-methyl-carbinamine, which is described as a racemic mixture of bases having the formula C6H5CH2.CH.NH2.CH3.
And that, by 1935, Trade Marks Journal, 22 May reported on Benzedrine, a medicated preparation consisting of benzyl-methyl-carbinamine, oil of lavender and menthol.Smith, Kline & French ... Laboratories ... Pennsylvania. That must be why Microsoft Word always tries to capitalise it.
By 22 June 1938 it had reached the august leader columns of The Times, where, under the excruciating heading of Lhude Sing Tishu (is that a double pun?) ‘the victims [of hay-fever] … fumble for the benzedrine’.
“The non-sufferer gives them the name of a new treatment, adding that she is afraid it is very expensive & that it only works in about 30 cases out of a hundred; & then the thin woman in the corner, who has not yet spoken, says that of course they can risk it if they like, but have they remembered what happened to poor Laura?”
That’s when they turn back to the benzedrine.
Then the writer compares the miseries of hay fever to those of unrequited love, both of which are “especially liable to attack ‘persons of active temperament & high mental development’ – a fact which some sufferers find faintly comforting & others merely ironical.”
“Both complaints have … been the subject of much painstaking research: but so far with negligible results”
Not much has changed in the way we look for cures or ways of attributing our afflictions to some kind of superior/inferior psychological trait
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