Cylindrical clear plastic bottle (a) with Nembutal pills, with removable plastic cap (b) and paper label reaching almost all the way around; contains two oblong brown pills and a cotton ball; the label is printed in light green, dark blue, yellow, and white ink, and details the quantity, purpose, t…
Cylindrical clear plastic bottle (a) with Nembutal pills, with removable plastic cap (b) and paper label reaching almost all the way around; contains two oblong brown pills and a cotton ball; the label is printed in light green, dark blue, yellow, and white ink, and details the quantity, purpose, title, dosage, and manufacturing information for the pills.
Nembutal is a barbiturate, a type of drug which depresses certain brain function. Nembutal was often used to treat sleep disorders and help induce sleep or relax patients, and to induce hypnosis. If too much of the drug is taken, a patient could stop breathing and die of an overdose. Because of this risk, barbiturates, including Nembutal, have been taken out of regular medical use over the past twenty years. However, it is often used in executions in the United States for capital punishment, as well as in assisted suicide.
Nembutal was synthesized at Abbott Laboratories in 1930 by Volwiler and Tabern.
Marilyn Monroe is believed to have died from an overdose of Nembutal.
Nembutal was also used as a basal anaesthetic, and, combined with other drugs, for childbirth. It reportedly did not have a bad taste aside from being slightly bitter, and patients complained little about it in that regard.