> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2002 21:53:40 -0400 (EDT) > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: t-and-f: NYTimes.com Article: A Journey With Wilt Chamberlain Through > Sport and Life > > This article from NYTimes.com > has been sent to you by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > A Journey With Wilt Chamberlain Through Sport and Life > > October 13, 2002 > By ROBERT LIPSYTE > >[most of it snipped here] > But that's not all [Lynda Huey] wrote. Her journals and unpublished > memoirs have a jock "Sex and the City" sensibility. In one > episode, she wangles media credentials to get close to a > famous Olympian from another country. In the midst of > recounting the graphic, gamey details of their explosive > encounter, she stops to describe an illegal, > performance-enhancing substance he was using. > > She writes: "If you ever used dimethyl sulfur dioxide > (DMSO), you tasted it; and if you ever tasted it, you never > forgot that taste. It was the supposed wonder drug of the > 1970's. If something hurt, you spread this clear, > garlic-smelling syrup on it and sometimes the pain > disappeared. Within a few minutes it was in your > bloodstream and the taste of garlic was in your mouth." >> If the NYT wrote it, it must be true, but this is the first I've ever heard of DMSO being either illegal or performance-enhancing. Far as I know, it's an industrial solvent that's a byproduct of the wood-processing industry. Hence the fact that Bill Bowerman's athletes in the '60s loved it. It penetrates the skin with ease, hence its use to carry other substances into the body. I can't imagine that the IAAF or IOC have ever looked at it as a substance to be banned. Didn't the FDA even refuse even to sanction its production as a "drug"? (I remember Oregon athletes of the era complaining that decision was based on bad science.) gh
