The New Hotness

Just got a new shipment of dope from our usual mail-order med supplier. The new dope comes in a livid red capsule, a disconcerting change from the previous green.

So, being an educated and somewhat wary consumer, I check the label to see what’s new. It seems my supplier is dealing from a new manufacturer!

Hitherto, I’d only encountered the word nostrum in phrases preceded by words like quack. The dictionary definition, at least for some values of dictionary, seems to back that up:

Noun

• S: (n) panacea, nostrum, catholicon, cure-all (hypothetical remedy for all ills or diseases; once sought by the alchemists)
• S: (n) nostrum (patent medicine whose efficacy is questionable)

Nevertheless, Nostrum Pharmaceuticals appears to be a legit concern.

There’s a reason why big companies spend all that money to come up with names that are equally meaningless in all known languages…