Largactil

Thorazine has its origins in the late 1940s, when surgeons prescribed an antihistamine called largactil as a way to relax anxious patients about to go into surgery.

With a few modifications, in 1952, largactil was reborn as the antipsychotic drug Thorazine, ushering in an entire generation of drugs to treat a variety of psychiatric disorders, from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder to severe depression and anxiety.

In Ibadan, I spoke to a pharmacist who says he periodically sells Largactil—the anti-psychotic chlorpromazine—to robe-wearing pastors who administer the drugs dissolved as a cocktail in a glass of holy water.

Sunday night is traditionally the home of Largactil , where the only thing to challenge your flat-lining heart rate is a missing letter in Lark Rise to Candleford or a warthog's phantom pregnancy in Wild at Heart, with unconsciousness invariably winning out.