Fiche d’anglais, vocabulaire, biologie

Pain, Pus and Poison, The Search for Modern Medicines

Michael Mosley

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hTZNDyLPLk

I. Vocabulary

• to numb =
• numb (adj) =
• an anesthetic =  
• anesthesia =
• poppy (n) =
• trial and error =
• class A drug =
• chemist =
• incoming/outgoing message =
• pain killer =
• to tone down =
• ailment =
• surgeon/surgery =
• a chance discovery =
• light-headed (adj) =
• teetotaller (n) =
• surgical theatre =
• coal tar (n) =
• a sea change =
• a fortuitous accident =
• a dye =
• side effects =
• a wart =
• eventually =
• stinging nettles =
• to design drugs from scratch =
• a spiked drink =
• to spike =
• an incentive =
• a faulty gene =
• herbal medicines =
• synthetic drugs =

II. Questions/Fill in the gaps:

1. Sertuerner was the first to extract the essence of _________________, a white powder he called _________________.

1. For centuries, there was only one substance that could reliably relieve pain: _________________, It is extracted from _________________,

1. The Sumerians called opium ______________________ .

1. When did opium become widely available in Europe?

1. Opium, dissolved in alcohol was particularly popular; the mix was called ______________________. 

1. Friederich Sertuerner was a 20 year-old German pharmacist. His experiments unlocked the key not just to pain ______________________, but to all modern ______________________. After two years of experiments, he discovered how to extract morphium from ______________________   ______________________.

1. Where does raw opium come from?

1. How did Sertuerner extract the chemicals from the raw opium?

1. What did Gay Lussac, the Doyen of Chemistry in Paris decide to do with respect to Sertuerner’s work?

1. What were alkaloids?

1. Why was the extraction of morphine such a big moment in the history of medicine?

1. Name other examples of alkaloids.

1. 11’58” to 13’06”: Normally, raw nerve endings ______________________an electrical signal, which travels to the spine. There it’s converted into a chemical ______________________, which crosses into other nerves, which then transmit the message to the ______________________. Once your brain has received that pain message, it can decide to ______________________or indeed, switch it off ______________________. It does that via another set of nerves, that send a signal down the spine and that ______________________the incoming pain message. Our brains typically activate this pain-relieving ______________________in times of extreme stress. There are a number of different points along the pain pathway where you can turn the pain response down and the ______________________interact with quite a few of them. For example, they make the brain switch on the ______________________pathways I’ve just described. They also act in the brain, to reduce the impact of any pain messages that get ______________________. There’s even recent evidence they can dull the raw nerve endings at the site of pain. It’s no wonder they are so ______________________.

1. What are some of the side effects of opiates?

1. Where does the name cocaine come from?

1. 14’05” to 14’27”: Cocaine was added to ______________________, which were promoted by the Pope, soft drinks for those who ______________________of alcohol and soothing drops and lozenges, bit it was cocaine’s reputation for combating hunger and ______________________that lead a curious Austrian doctor called Sigmund Freud to investigate its effects ______________________.

1. What did Freud prescribe cocaine for?

1.  Explain what trainee eye surgeon Karl Koller tried with cocaine. What is the effect of cocaine on nerves?

1. 17’26” to 17’49”: Dr Stephanie Snow: Pain was understood as an essential ______________________in terms of surgery so although surgeons were concerned about the ______________________of pain on patients in terms of bearability, in terms of keeping a patient alive during an operation, it was regarded as part of the ______________________.

1. What did Humphry Davy discover?

1.  What did Horace Wells and William Morton try to demonstrate?

1. Describe how the “sweet oil of vitriol” (now known as ether) was made, and what its effects were.

1. What did American dentist William Morton do in 1846 and why was it such a groundbreaking moment?

1. What happened in 1845 when an 18 year-old British chemist tried to use coal tar to make quinine?

1. Acetanilide, a derivative of coal tar, was marketed as a ______________________ drug.

Which industry was it used in?

1. What pharmaceutical use was it marketed for?

1. What did German chemist Carl Duisberg from Bayer set out to do? What did he discover?

1. Salicylic acid is derived from ______________________and was originally thought to be an ______________________.

1. What were its properties as a drug? What about its side effects?

1.  German research chemist Arthur Eichengrun tried to modify the Salicylic acid molecule to make it more ______________________and less harsh on the ______________________.

1. Eichengrun would eventually name his drug ______________________.

1. What did a chemist from his team try with morphine, and what did he obtain?

1.  The chief tester, Heinrich Dreiser examined both Aspirin and Diamorphine. Which one was rejected as being dangerous? Which one did he like and market to the world?

1. What did Eichengrun do in order to promote his drug (Aspirin)?

1. What other properties does aspirin have?

1. The hypodermic needle had been invented in ______________________.

1.  What did German chemist Oscar Liebreich experiment with in 1869? What did he discover?

1.  What were the drawbacks of using chloral hydrate during surgery? What was it marketed as?

1. Chloral hydrate spawned a notorious anaesthetic, sodium thiopental, otherwise known as the “______________________”.

1.  Sodium thiopental is part of a group of drugs called the ______________________, which were particularly popular in the 1950s and 1960s as sleeping pills.

1. What made sodium thiopental a great anaesthetic?

 III. Faux amis: Sensitive vs Sensible

                    Eventually vs. Eventuellement

• sensitive =

• sensible =

• eventually =

• éventuellement =

...