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Long-distance walking, known as pedestrianism, was a popular sport in both Britain and America in the 1870s and 1880s. "Wobbles" or "go-as-you-please" races were gradually replaced by faster and more exciting cycling events, which promised pile-ups (and the occasional thrill of a lady cyclist), but pedestrianism could also deliver drama. It was a brutal, punishing sport. Spectators might see racers bleeding from their feet or from slashed thighs, which were cut to relieve muscle tension.
In 1888, British pedestrian champion George Littlewood even had his alcohol footbath set alight by a saboteur while he was still using it. Littlewood was not discouraged by the experience and went on to set a world record which stood unbeaten for nearly a century, walking 623 miles (1,004km) in a six-day race.
It's no surprise that few people have wanted to challenge Littlewood's record: not only were six-day races physically gruelling, they were also grimly monotonous, with walkers often completing thousands of laps of small, indoor circuits. In Britain one of the regularly used venues was the Royal Agricultural Hall, and it was here, in February 1876, that the famous American pedestrian Edward Payson Weston set off to walk 115 miles in 24 hours. His only challenger, British walker "Mr Perkins", dropped out after 14½ hours, while Weston completed the full 24 hours, falling 5½ miles short of his goal.
According to an indignant letter published in the British Medical Journal, he chewed on coca leaves during his race. (Although less potent than purified cocaine, the leaves are still a stimulant.)
We're familiar with stories about doping in sport, but it's probably less common to find the scandal breaking in a medical journal. The BMJ became involved because this was not a sports doping scandal, but a science doping scandal: the whistleblower did not particularly care about the effect of the drug on Weston's performance, but he was worried that it might have ruined an important physiological experiment.
Dr Frederick Pavy, a physician and physiologist at Guy's Hospital, had persuaded Weston to collect his urine during the ordeal. Pavy wanted to conduct a chemical analysis of the urine, and examine it under his microscope, hoping that it would help resolve a trans-Atlantic dispute over where the human body gets the energy necessary for such physical feats.
In the 1840s German chemist Justus von Liebig had argued that protein was our major energy source. He believed that when we eat protein we make muscle tissue, and when we need energy we break down that tissue, releasing energy in a chemical reaction.
This seemed to explain why people with muscular bodies were stronger and had more endurance than those with skinny or flabby bodies. If protein was broken down for energy during exercise the chemical waste products would be found in urine, but by the 1860s several European scientists had published contradictory urine studies and were arguing that protein was only one possible source of energy, with fats and carbohydrates also being important.
By the 1870s one of the few remaining defenders of Liebig's thesis was an American physiologist, Dr Austin Flint Jr, who made many studies of Weston and claimed his urine samples proved that protein was the crucial energy source for exercise. So when Weston came to London, Pavy seized the opportunity to check Flint's results, using the same human guinea-pig.
As it turned out, the coca leaf incident did not spoil the experiment because on the day Weston chewed the drug a careless attendant had thrown slops in the urine bucket, so the whole sample had been discarded. Using the other, untainted samples Pavy concluded that protein metabolism could not provide all the energy needed for pedestrianism: Liebig and Flint were wrong.
Victorian athletes were perfectly free to take stimulants, or "tonics" as they were then called, and pharmaceuticals during sports events. Injections of strychnine, tinctures of cocaine and sips of alcohol were all used in normal medical practice to treat aches, pains and fatigue, so the idea was that if an athlete experienced these symptoms during their sport, they were allowed to take medicine to cure them just like anyone else.
The realisation that some drugs don't just cure sick or weak bodies but actually push us beyond our natural physical limits (and are therefore unfair) did not take hold in sports until well into the 20th century. Even in the 21st century we still sometimes struggle to tell the difference between legitimate, curative drug use, and unhealthy or unfair doping.
It was the Edwardians who brought in the first doping ban in competitive sports, at the first London Olympic marathon in 1908, but this was probably due to fears about the athletes' health in this particularly stressful event and not because it was "cheating" or "unfair" (the rules only applied to the marathon, after all).
Weston's other favourite tonic – which he thought more effective than coca leaves – was Liebig's Extract of Meat. By 1908 this was the familiar household brand Oxo, and Oxo was the official caterer of the 1908 Olympic Marathon. Runners were given it for free, with the organisers' blessing.
Vanessa Heggie is a historian of science at the University of Cambridge
From Science: Life and Physics | guardian.co.uk
Comments
19 June 2012 3:27PM
I do so hope that Peter Hitchens is reading this:-)
19 June 2012 4:17PM
Why? As far as I know he has only written on the use of recreational drugs.
19 June 2012 4:25PM
As a criminologist who has done a lot of sport - hence my Sports Criminology blog - I find the mismatch between the 'war on drugs' in society (largely recognised to be an embarrassing failure) and its hyper competitive reflection in sport to be risible. I will be blogging about this in the run up to the Olympics.
19 June 2012 4:29PM
As far as I'm aware the athletes health is still the main reason many performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) are banned. For example EPO is known to increase the risk of cardiavascular complications. When athletes dope they are often taking substances that have not been tested long term, thus they can be gambling with their lives.
You only have to look at the list of premature deaths in cycling, or look at what happened to many of the 'roided up bodybuilders from the early days of Gold's gym to see that death is a definite risk.
19 June 2012 4:42PM
The idea that any drug can take you beyond your "natural limits" is bollocks.
19 June 2012 4:45PM
Its fair that athletes can't take any performance enhancing drugs but if only the rational thought surrounding drugs in general prevailed again...
19 June 2012 4:45PM
I'd also add you could argue that athletes doping these days are just as extreme as those in Edwardian times. They are just as much guinea pigs now as they were then. Sure, they may have their own doctors to prescribe their PEDs, even ones who drive around in fancy sports cars, but they have no idea of the long term effects on their bodies.
19 June 2012 4:56PM
Wasn't sport in this era recreational? (owing to it's (potential) professionalism reduced by said drugs)
(article:)
My point about Peter Hitchens was that those such as he who yearn for the days (past) where the abuse of stimulants was (as they so often believe) rare, if not non-existent is incorrect.
19 June 2012 5:27PM
haha... good luck reaching 300 lbs at 5% bf without massive doses of test, insulin and growth then
19 June 2012 5:29PM
The idea that any drug can take you beyond your "natural limits" is bollocks.
As late as 1939, my team Portsmouth took monkey glands before the FA Cup Final. They started as underdogs, ran out 4-1 winners and held the trophy until 1946 (admittedly due to WW2.) - so evidence e there of performance enhancement.
(I wonder if monkey glands are currently banned by UEFA - if not, get them to the Championships in time for England team to benefit!)
19 June 2012 5:38PM
Isn't money glands a load of bollocks anyway?
19 June 2012 5:39PM
Well, if other tales are to be believed, there were an increasing number of problems with "performance enhancement" in distance events as the industrial revolution progressed. Mechanised transport was the other one - people allegedly getting lifts or even catching trains, cyclists being pulled etc.
So it may well have been part of a wider clampdown.
19 June 2012 6:07PM
It would take some serious drugs to enhance cricketers' performance to the level of 'interesting'.
19 June 2012 6:14PM
I always knew Mark Bosnich was an Edwardian gent at heart.
19 June 2012 6:21PM
I sometimes have a spliff before football training and am amazed at how natural my game becomes, my spatial awareness is improved, vision and touch all increase markedly. The greatest benefit of all though is that I really don't get worked up about bad play or moaning minnies on either side.
19 June 2012 6:30PM
i used to smoke a joint before playing table tennis , i was brilliant , the ball moved so slowly! , impossible to miss!
19 June 2012 6:32PM
The 'Monkey Gland' stories of the 1930s are a real treat; Wolverhampton Wanderers seem to have been the first to announce that they were using them, and other clubs followed suit.
I'm not 100% convinced that they really did use gland extracts; testosterone was identified and isolated in the 1930s, and 'gland' extracts were used in patent remedies, so it's technically possible, but some of the stories about it don't quite add up (e.g. some team members remember tablets, others injections, etc). It's quite possible that Wolves' rather eccentric (tho' successful) coach Frank Buckley was using a bit of psychological trickery to improve his players' performances, and worry his opponents. But, Wolves had a good season, as did the other clubs claiming to use monkey glands, so who knows...
Vanessa Heggie
19 June 2012 6:44PM
This year I shall be sure to watch out for such dastardly subterfuge as athletes sneakily mainlining OXO around the back of the velodrome sheds.
19 June 2012 6:45PM
Arr - but it all goes a bit pear-shaped when the ball starts talking to you.
19 June 2012 6:50PM
Enloyed the article.
"Although less potent than purified cocaine, the leaves are still a stimulant" - I don't agree with this sentence, it gives the impression that it's more or less the same thing. As far as I know there is a world of difference between purified cocaine and chewing coca leaves. The latter may have a mild stimulant effect but more like having a coffee, I think, than snorting a line and going all Ravey Davey Gravey.
Drugs in Sport? How about the Germans in the 1954 World Cup Final?
19 June 2012 7:20PM
"The idea that any drug can take you beyond your "natural limits" is bollocks."
If only that were true. It may have been the case up until the 70's, but once hormone treatment became effective then the impact became huge.
By the late 80's EPO changed the face of endurance sports, turning carthorses into thoroughbreds.
It doesn't just take people beyond their limits, it creats a whole new athlete.
In a "fair" world, everyone would get the same benefit and it would still be a level playing field. In the real world, some people respond better to the drugs than others, so what we're seeing isn't just a measure of who has the most talent and who works the hardest, it's a measure of who responds best to the medicines.
19 June 2012 7:31PM
'The greatest benefit of all though is that I really don't get worked up about bad play or moaning minnies on either side....'
or scoring goals, or even standing up for long periods?
19 June 2012 7:38PM
'The idea that any drug can take you beyond your "natural limits" is bollocks'
Surely I read in the Grauniad just the other day that many womens' track and field records have not been broken since drug testing became more rigorous about 20 years ago?
At grammar school in the late 60's a very spaced-out boy joined us in the 6th form, with many interesting tales of living in California. He was clever but bone-idle, and always bunking off, so we all turned up with interest when by some underhand means he was conscripted into the inter-house 200 yards. He beat the school champions by 15 yards.
19 June 2012 8:17PM
You are conflating the use of drugs for medical treatment and improved performance with their use for inducing an altered mental state.
I am reluctant to appear as an advocate for Peter Hitchens (or anyone else) both for fear of misrepresenting him, and because I don't wish to come across as an uncrtitical sycophant, but I am certain that he has never claimed that drug use in the past was non-existent . However a few athletes taking drugs in the victorian era does not compare to the mass use that we have now. One thing I do know of Peter Hitchens is that he does not believe that there has ever been a 'Golden Age' though he is accused time and time again of such a belief. Visit his BLOG, you might find out what he really thinks (if you really want to know that is).
19 June 2012 8:19PM
Not if you're a money!
19 June 2012 8:25PM
Fascinating article, I am particularly amused by the original name for Oxo!
19 June 2012 8:55PM
I was going to slate you but, thankfully, the Guardian's readership saved me the effort.
19 June 2012 9:22PM
Awesome... Until the 'shrooms begin to turn on you...
19 June 2012 10:55PM
I hit the K key I promise! I think it as some toast under it! No more eating toast whilst messing about on the laptop!
20 June 2012 12:22PM
So its OK for one to alter their mind, so long as they are improving their performance is it?
I visit... often.
He just recently stated your 'misrepresentation' point actually. (as I suspect you already know)
I saw him on a panel giving his views on drugs recently on BBC Parliament. This man has NO qualifications in the field so why are his comments valid I ask?
Much like a non-scientist who demands that climate change is false, I don't tend to rate someone who has never imbibed as an authority on drugs. ('addiction' in particular)
(though discounting scientists of course)
(and) Where do I find Mr Hitchens attack upon the two most dangerous killers of our time... cigarettes and alcohol?
Point me to the article please.
20 June 2012 1:25PM
Right, so Ben Johnson would have run just as fast on water, would he?
20 June 2012 1:41PM
Where i have said that?
Really, well then you will know that he has devoted tens of thousands of words to your other queries. Look at the BLOG index.
20 June 2012 2:55PM
So its OK for one to alter their mind, so long as they are improving their performance is it?
One can follow from the other. (or the latter from the former)
I visit... often.
Why not take a look at some of the comments too.
A Response to Peter Hitchens: The Face of Cognitive Fascism
(1.27) ''The purpose of drugs is to befuddle us, to cloud our brains, to make us passive...''
Yawn.
Clinical trials test potential of hallucinogenic drugs to help patients with terminal illnesses. (The Guardian)
Psychedelic drugs return as potential treatments for mental illness. (The Guardian)
(add note: re; second Guardian link)
I too (OCD) am a sufferer myself.
20 June 2012 3:40PM
seems you need to clean the "H" key as well :-)