Huxley on Soma

[juan]

"Most highly publicized of these [new drugs] are the three new
tranquillizers, reserpine, chlorpromazine and meprobamate.

None of these drugs is perfectly harmless; but their cost, in terms of
physical health and mental efficiency, is extraordinarily low. In a
world where nobody gets anything for nothing tranquillizers offer a
great deal for very little. Miltown and chlorpromazine are not yet
soma; but they come fairly near to being one of the aspects of that
mythical drug. 

A more promising candidate for the role of soma in its third aspect is
Iproniazid

Still more promising, according to a distinguished pharmacologist of my
acquaintance, is a new compound, still in the testing stage, to be
known as Deaner" 



We see then that, though soma does not yet exist (and will probably
never exist), fairly good substitutes for the various aspects of soma
have already been discovered. There are now physiologically cheap
tranquillizers, physiologically cheap vision-producers and
physiologically cheap stimulants"