Name that drug
| 22 July, 2011 | Richard P. Grant |
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“Pandemrix”
The word might not mean anything to you now, but if I were to tell you it was a drug–or a vaccination–you’d probably guess right away what it was for.
Pandemrix is an adjuvanted anti-flu vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline, targetted against the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. And it has a great name.
Another great name is “Pregno”. Unfortunately that one, for a contraceptive pill, was made up by British comedian Jasper Carrott.
So in the best traditions of Fridays everywhere, I want you to make up a drug name, and tell me what it treats. F1000-flavoured swag for the funniest, as ever.
And it’ll be running on twitter too–please use the hashtag #140drugs.
(And the winner of the previous competition is
drum roll
Richard Wintle!)
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Hello,
Where do I leave the name of the drug? Please do let me know on poojasalhotra@gmail.com. Thanks.
Pooja
In the comments here is fine.
I cannot resist this:
Dormoben for a drug that makes you sleep. Dormire, in latin, is sleep, ben is well.
Duropen is of course some sort of blue pill. Duro means hard, pen is the penis.
Caputsan, is something for the head, Caput is the head, and san is a contraction for healthy.
The funniest one is Zeppelin, which exists. It is to be taken anally, the name reminds a dirigible, and the shape too (luckily not the size).
This game reminds me the naming of species. I once found, with my friend Jean Bouillon, during a stay in Papua New Guinea, a strange hydroid, with enormous cnidocysts. Very aggressive indeed. At those times Reagan was the president of the US, a quite aggressive guy, so we wanted to dedicate the genus to him: Reaganius, and the name of the species was after another weapon endowed guy: Rambo.
The name of the species would have been: Reaganius ramboides. Then, we discovered that a guy had described that beast, in 193something: Pteroclava krempfi. And so we missed this opportunity of celebrating both Reagan and Rambo in one shot.
Reaganius might be good name for a drug too. Something that makes you feel very important, and mighty. An anti-depressive.
*laugh*
Excellent stuff. Keep ’em coming.
“a strange hydroid, with enormous cnidocysts”
Yikes. That sounds like a phrase out of Darwin’s “Coral Reefs”, which is full of impenetrable lingo like that.
And thanks for TEH WIN in the contest… even if it was just a random draw. 🙂
As for drug names… eh, I got nothin’.
well, hydroids are cnidarians, aka coelenterates. They are in all zoology textbooks (and almost on all rocks, as long as they are underwater). And cnidocysts are the stinging cells of all cnidaria, the tiny things they have to inject poison into their victims. They too are in all zoology textbooks. Anyway I like the comparison of my little sentence with Darwin’s lingo. I like to cite Darwin VERY much, but this one is mine.
I take this opportunity to propose another drug name:
Calmatuss, which is some stuff you might want to use to calm down your cough. Cough is Tussis in Latin, Calma is to calm, of course.
Of course, if you are a sex addict (like the black guy who plays golf and traded his dashiki for some Jordache jeans), and you are a male specimen, you should take:
Minchiamol, but I will not explain this one. Some mystery must remain in these names, after all.
I was told to post these here;
Morphine – for pain after shape shifting
Disleckseeyah b gon – for learning difficulties
pongease – for relief from bromhidrosis (smelly feet)
Canuhearme – for cerumen (earwax)
Parasitamore – for hemorrhoids
I can do no better than the dear practice nurse at my practice who often muddles up names of complex things a bit although never gets the important stuff like excellent patient care wrong – she always insisted on calling the vaccine you mentioned “Panda Mix” – is it derived from bamboo?
Lenipus, is something that alleviates skin eruptions in teen-agers, usually followed by industrial production of pus out of tiny holes in the poor skin.
Mammadur is a miraculous cream that hardens (duro) the mammalian protuberances of frustrated female specimens of our species who do not accept that the force of gravity acts on their body.
Capilflu is a magic cream that makes hair (capillus) spring out fluent from bald skulls of equally frustrated male specimens (a side effect is the growth of unwanted mammalian protuberances on the chest of formerly bald guys).
More later, maybe
Ha ha!
Oh, you’re all making my job incredibly difficult. I do like ‘Panda Mix’.
In my maniacal passion for Frank Zappa, I tend to believe that there is no topic that was left uncited by FZ, so I dug in my memory to find reference to diseases in FZ opera magna.
just for the sake of history, bromidrosis is cited in the song Stinkfoot, but the remedy to that was the licking of feet by a collaborative poodle dog. By the way, I found a dr Frank (William) Zappa who works in a Foot Clinic! Hemorrhoids are mentioned in “Latex Solar Beef”. Zappa referred to psychotropic drugs as “chemical amusement aids” (“The Adventures of Greggery Peccary”) and disapproved them totally. He also made a piece on learning difficulties: “Why Johnny can’t read”. Incontinence, as a result of mashed potatoes ingestion, is cited in “The mammy nuns”. In “Punky’s whips” there is a rash that keeps girls away, skin doom is what the doctor said. The gonococcus is cited in “Why does it hurt when I pee?” and the cause of the disease was (wrongly) diagnosed as: I got it from the toilet seat! Lucille was the real cause (of course). Then there is: Luisiana hooker with herpes. Regarding false teeth, there is “baby take your teeth out”, and there is also “Dental hygiene dilemma”, not to speak about the dental floss cited in “Montana”. Dandruff is cited in “Disco boy”. As for sexual enhancement procedures, there is the marvelous “G spot tornado”. Stinky breath is celebrated in “Dog breath”. Medical equipment is mentioned in the “Illinois enema bandit”. What about “Botulism on the hoof”? or “Diptheria Blues”? Misspelling for Diphtheria.
These are just the first that come to my mind. Enough to build a medical play list to send on air in all doctors’ waiting rooms: Dr Zappa is ready to visit you.
Now the medical portion of F of 1000 know what to send on air to re-assure their patients! Satisfaction guaranteed (or your money back).