the.com/painkiller
a chemical bribe paid to nerves so they stop screaming about the obvious
means A medicine, such as aspirin, ibuprofen, or an opioid, taken to dull or relieve pain.
from A plain English compound that does exactly what it says: "pain" (from Old French peine, ultimately Latin poena, "penalty, punishment") plus "killer" (from "kill," a word of murky Middle English origin, perhaps related to an Old English root meaning to strike or beat). The marriage of the two as a single word for an analgesic is a fairly modern coinage, born in an age that liked its remedies blunt and its labels honest.
- willow origins
- Aspirin descends from willow bark chewed for millennia
- opioid trap
- Morphine named for Morpheus, the god of dreams
- placebo power
- Fake pills relieve real pain in many studies
- deadly tylenol
- Acetaminophen overdose is a leading cause of liver failure
- pain blocked
- Some block signals before they ever reach the brain
oxycontin — purdue pharma's extended-release oxycodone that generated $31 billion in sales and fueled the opioid crisis starting in 1996
aspirin — bayer's acetylsalicylic acid, first mass-produced pain medication in 1899, still one of the world's most consumed drugs
ibuprofen — developed by boots in nottingham in 1961, branded as advil and motrin, now over-the-counter in most countries