A Powerfully Concentrated History of Performance Enhancement

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8th century BC Greek Olympians load up on mushrooms, herbs, and wine to boost speed.

6th century BC Indian surgeon performs the world’s first rhinoplasty (nose job).

1599 Vatican condemns plastic surgery for tinkering with God’s creation.

1675 King Charles II bans coffee for inspiring jittery, seditious talk.

1888 British dictionary defines “doping” as “a mixture of opium and alcohol given to race horses.”

1889 Pitcher “Pud” Galvin injects himself with ground animal testicles, wins 364 games.

1904 American marathon runner wins Olympic gold while chugging egg whites, brandy, and strychnine.

1940s Nazis give their troops amphetamines. So do the Japanese, British, and Americans.

1966 The Rolling Stones release “Mother’s Little Helper.”

1969 Track & Field News hails steroids as the “breakfast of champions.”

1973 The Six Million Dollar Man debuts; today, he’d be worth $29 million.

1983 A presenter at a urology convention drops trou to demo his new impotence treatment, a Viagra precursor.

1996 Arnold Schwarzenegger says he has “no regrets” about steroid use: “It was what I had to do to compete.”

1997 Former East German shot-put champ has a female-to-male sex change after years of artificial testosterone use.

2003 Olympics removes caffeine from its list of banned substances.

2004 Viagra sponsors online fantasy baseball game “Clutch Performances.”

2006 Disgraced sprinter Ben Johnson promotes Cheetah energy drink: “I Cheetah all the time.”

2007 Provigil spotted in Britney Spears’ purse.

2008 FDA okays Latisse, a glaucoma medicine, as the first prescription drug for “longer, fuller, darker lashes.”

2008 US Olympic Committee launches “Don’t Be an Asterisk” anti-steroids campaign.

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

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