Episode 268: Morphine

(Piano music) Hello and welcome to Your Greek Word On A Sunday, a weekly, bite-size podcast for anyone curious on language, etymology and connections. I am your host, Emmanuela Lia and wherever you are in the world, if you want to entertain your brain for a few minutes, this is the podcast for you. Let's Go! Happy November, everyone! We're still in Halloween mood here in the UK so, I've decided to follow up from last week's word. This is probably one of the most accurate yet creative modern namings of a medicine I know. We touched upon this god on a couple of episodes with his name mentioned in the last one but I've never told you his story. He was one of the first gods. Son of night and Sleep, nephew of Death (and I'm here to correct myself calling them brothers last week) , two of his thousands of siblings were Fear and Fantasia, also known as Dreams and although they had wings, he didn't need them. His purpose was to deliver messages to mortals from the other gods. His name comes from the word Μορφή (morfi) which means 'Shape' , because he would shape into anyone in order for the message to be more effective. According to the Roman writer Ovid, he would sleep on a bed of poppies and that's were the German pharmacist Friedrich Serturner who isolated the substance in 1804, got the idea for the name. The substance that would ease your pain, cause you to hallucinate or be deadly. If you haven't guessed it yet, the name of the god is Morpheus and the medicine ΜΟΡΦΙΝΗ/MORPHINEInstagram @yourgreeksunday ,Blue Sky @yourgreeksunday.bsky.socialemail [email protected]

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