I'm currently reading through a book covering the early US space program - up through Apollo.
In the book, it mentions that one of the crew on one of the flights was sick. He didn't tell mission control about it until later, though. When he finally did, the author made a comment like this:
Why he waited so long, I don't know. If he had reported it earlier, the doctors could have prescribed pills from the on-board supply to cure the sickness.
What, exactly, did this onboard supply contain?
Yes medicines are carried on all space flights.
The astronauts will communicate with doctors in the ground station, and doctors will monitor the astronauts periodically.
Mercury crews carried nothing for pain, Gemini missions carried Aspirin and injectable Demerol, and Apollo added Tylenol and Darvon
The astronauts are advised to stand with the support of the wall for supporting the spinal cord, and pain killers are not often used.
Minor infections of the skin, eyes and respiratory tract were reported 13 times in Apollo (including stomatitis, pharyngitis, recurrent inguinal and axillary infections) (2), and 8 times in Skylab (3), despite carrying Tetracycline, Ampicillin and Neosporin antibiotics (4).
