Regular readers of Flashfree know how amused and astonished that I am when I run across vintage menopause ads. This one is for Nardil, an agent used primarily to treat social anxiety and certain types of depression that don’t respond to other drugs, meaning that it is rarely the first antidepressant used. Ironically, while first prescribed for menopause in the Sixties, it remains part of the depression armamentarium 50 years later! Nardil has some significant side effects, including a worsening of depression and suicidal thoughts.
The housewife in the ad was brought into the doctor by her husband, ‘sympathetic but obviously out of his depth!’