History of IVs and the Myers’ Cocktail

IV therapy as we know it is barely a century old, but did you know that the practice of injecting fluids into a vein has been around since the 1600s? However, due to the lack of modern science and knowledge of the human body, early attempts to deliver IV fluids and drugs were mostly unsuccessful.
The first recorded attempt at a blood transfusion using basic IV treatment took place in the 1660s. The experiment, which included two unfortunate dogs, was unsuccessful.
Later, Sir Christopher Wren created the first successful IV infusion device from a pig’s bladder and a quill. This paved the way for future developments in IV therapy.
In the 1830s, Dr. Thomas Latta discovered that injecting certain fluids into the bloodstream could help battle cholera. Using a syringe and silver tube, he successfully revived 8 of the 25 patients he treated.
In 1945, the plastic catheter became common due to the frequency of IV failure, specifically infiltrations. By the 1960s, the sight of IV treatment devices became routine in most American hospitals.
During the 1960s, Dr. John Myers, an internist from Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, concluded that because of our digestive, absorptive, and detoxification systems, only a small fraction of the vitamins and minerals we take (either in food or pills) were actually being absorbed into our bloodstream. He proposed that a harmless mixture of key nutritional supplements might be given in a single intravenous infusion-literally flooding each cell in the body with nutrition-to improve their performance. Each of the vitamins and minerals Dr. Myers selected had actually been available in intravenous form for years, but no one had ever considered combining them into an intravenous “cocktail”.
Dr. Myers experimented on lab animals first, then on himself. Now, more than 40 years later, hundreds of thousands of Myers’ cocktails are administered each year by nutritionally oriented physicians.
The basic Myers’ formula consists of a well-tested mixture of vitamin C, B12, B complex, magnesium, and minerals diluted in fluids. The most common sensations reported is the odd experience of tasting the vitamins.
IV therapy is now one of the most widely used treatments in modern medicine. Health Care providers are able to effectively treat patients based on the milestones discovered by innovators like Sir Wren, Dr. Latta, and Dr. Myers.