Q 01/05

Oseltamivir, sold as Tamiflu, was first made from shikimic acid extracted from which Chinese spice?

A) Star anise

B) Sichuan pepper

C) Cassia bark

D) Galangal

Answer · why

A) Star anise

Star anise was for years the only source of Tamiflu's shikimic acid, so pandemic stockpiling strained the spice supply until E. coli fermentation took...

Q 02/05

Which flower, screened in the 1950s as a diabetes remedy, instead yielded the cancer drugs vinblastine and vincristine?

A) Evening primrose

B) Madagascar periwinkle

C) Autumn crocus

D) Mexican marigold

Answer · why

B) Madagascar periwinkle

Madagascar periwinkle, also called graveyard plant and bright eyes, gave up its vinca alkaloids during 1950s screening for anti-diabetic drugs and is ...

Q 03/05

Which cocktail began with British officers in the Raj making their bitter daily antimalarial quinine more palatable?

A) Whisky sour

B) Pimm's cup

C) Gin and tonic

D) Pink gin

Answer · why

C) Gin and tonic

Gin and tonic took off after 1858, when the first commercial tonic water went on sale and the British military bought it in bulk, mixing it with lime ...

Q 04/05

Which opium-derived drug did Bayer sell from 1898 as a 'non-addictive' morphine substitute and cough suppressant?

A) Heroin

B) Laudanum

C) Paregoric

D) Methadone

Answer · why

A) Heroin

Heroin took its trade name from the German heroisch, 'heroic', and soon showed one of the highest addiction rates of any drug despite the advertising.

Q 05/05

Which South American arrow poison was first given to a surgical patient as a muscle relaxant in Montreal in 1942?

A) Strychnine

B) Curare

C) Aconite

D) Ouabain

Answer · why

B) Curare

Curare let Harold Griffith and Enid Johnson relax a patient's muscles during an appendectomy on 23 January 1942, and its main alkaloid is still called...