Princeton University, USA,
Harvard Medical School, USA.
J Hist Med Allied Sci. 2021 Sep 6;76(3):294-318. doi: 10.1093/jhmas/jrab016.
For nearly a century, sodium pentothal was the undisputed king of anesthetics. Anesthesiologists were not, however, the sole consumers of pentothal, as psychiatrists used it to treat acute anxiety during psychoanalysis. The associated drug-induced inhibitions were attractive not only to psychotherapists, but also to a new generation of policing and Cold War espionage searching for the elusive truth serum. Cameo appearances of pentothal in media, film, and popular culture propagated the anesthetic's negative public image. While legal challenges to the admissibility of pentothal-induced confessions and congressional investigations of clandestine truth serum programs may have tainted the popular anesthetic, it was pentothal's widespread adaptation as part of the lethal injection cocktail that finally killed the king of anesthetics as pharmaceutical companies around the world refused to manufacture what had been transformed into a largely unprofitable drug, associated with capital punishment.
近一个世纪以来，戊巴比妥一直是无可争议的麻醉剂之王。然而，戊巴比妥并不仅为麻醉师所使用，精神科医生也将其用于精神分析治疗急性焦虑。这种药物引起的抑制作用不仅对心理治疗师有吸引力，也对新一代的警察和冷战间谍机构有吸引力，因为他们都在寻找难以捉摸的“诚实血清”。戊巴比妥在媒体、电影和流行文化中的客串，传播了这种麻醉剂的负面公众形象。虽然对戊巴比妥诱导的供述的可采性提出的法律质疑以及国会对秘密诚实血清计划的调查可能使这种流行的麻醉剂名誉受损，但戊巴比妥被广泛用作致命注射鸡尾酒的一部分，最终导致麻醉剂之王的死亡，因为全球的制药公司都拒绝制造这种已转变为主要无利可图的药物，这种药物与死刑有关。
