Tag: drugs

On the naming of drugs

[podcast]https://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/uploads//2012/01/The-Naming-of-Drugs.mp3[/podcast] If you take a prescription drug, you’ve probably said to your pharmacist something like this. “Hi, I need a refill of the hydro… chloro… thoro… acti… zine? Zanc? Something like that.” At which point the pharmacist manfully chokes back his laughter at your pharmaceutical phonetics phailure, tactfully supplies the actual name of the drug, …

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Things I Found in my Mother-in-Law’s House: The Medicine Cabinet

Notes for today’s CBC radio spot… *** It’s a bit of a cliché: the guest who can’t resist poking through his host’s medicine cabinet, just to see what’s in there. Well, Ed Willett isn’t a guest in his own home but he sometimes feels like it, because it’s full of odds and ends that have …

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Another day, another box of books…

…with my name on them. Fresh from Rosen Publishing comes Incredibly Disgusting Drugs: Speed, by yours truly.

On the premature popping-off of pop stars

Download the audio version.Get my column as a podcast. *** I recently spent a several months in the 1960s. Of course, about 40 years ago I spent a whole decade in the 1960s, but since I was a pre-teen the whole time I definitely fall into the “if you can remember the ’60s, you weren’t …

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Exercise by taking a pill?

My kind of workout.

Farming mutates into pharming:

“Genetically modified chickens lay drugs in eggs.”

Here’s the kind of headline you like to see:

Cheap, safe drug kills most cancers. Of course, so far it’s only killed them outside of the body, but keep your fingers crossed.

Making sleep optional

It’s a safe bet that there have been a lot of bleary-eyed people around Regina this week, following last week’s Grey Cup revelry.  But then, there are a lot of bleary-eyed people around all the time, since very few of us ever get as much sleep as we really need. That being the case, wouldn’t …

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Addiction

We sometimes throw around the word “addiction” a little loosely.  “I’m addicted to Harlequin Romances” someone might say, or, “I’m addicted to CBC Radio.” True addiction, however, isn’t just doing something frequently because you enjoy it, or even a habit that’s hard to break:  it’s a complex condition that involves the brain’s biochemistry, genetic factors, social factors, …

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Aspirin

Roughly 24 centuries ago, the father of medicine, Hippocrates, urged women in the throes of childbirth to chew on willow bark. The bitter bark contained a substance that eased their pain. (There’s no record of what the women thought of his suggestion.) By the 19th century scientists knew that mysterious substance was salicylic acid. Synthesized …

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