Polite Dissent

6 Responses to “ Comic Book Drug Quiz ”

1. David Oakes
   April 6th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
   

   OK, my bad for not knowing that Scapalamine was a misspelling. (And probably a good thing I never had to have an ER rotation. “Nurse, give this man 100 mikes of Scapalamine, stat! But if anyone asks, Denyitol.”) But you seriously expect me to believe that a Legion of Super-Heroes name like “Rocuronium” is a real drug?

2. Scott
   April 6th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
   Official Comment

   Rocuronium, though used by Dr. Mid-Nite in JSA Classified #24, is a real drug: a paralytic agent used for intubation and during anesthesia. Rocuronium is the generic name; the brand name, Zemuron, sounds like something out of Star Trek.

3. Evan Waters
   April 8th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
   

   How exactly did the tradition of giving drugs vaguely classical-sounding but ultimately meaningless names start?

4. Scott
   April 8th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
   Official Comment

   Drug Companies have whole departments whose job it is to find “marketable” names. That’s how we ended up with so many Z- and X- names because they sound “cooler.”

5. Carl
   April 9th, 2007 at 6:26 am
   

   You’ve fallen victim to the spelling Heisenberg effect, misspelling “Scopolamine” in your own article.

6. moon_custafer
   April 10th, 2007 at 11:55 am
   

   Saquinevir (not sure of the spelling) an AIDS drug from a few years back, always begged to be
   a drag name - “Sequinevere.” Also a friend (now deceased) had to take a steroid called “Decadron,” during her cancer treatment. Another friend and I agreed it could have been an SF locale
   (”to get those files, we’re going to have to break into Decadron somehow,”);
   a cyberpunk cultural detail (”his mirrored sunglasses, by Decadron of Tokyo”);
   or of course, a villain (”Next time on ReBoot, the evil Decadron…”).

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