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More than 2,500 barbiturates have been synthesized. At the height of their popularity, about 50 were marketed for human use.
In the United States, there is a birth every 8 seconds, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's Population Clock.
Aspirin is the most widely used drug in the world. It has even been recognized as such by the Guinness Book of World Records.
As many as 28% of hospitalized patients requiring mechanical ventilators to help them breathe (for more than 48 hours) will develop ventilator-associated pneumonia. Current therapy involves intravenous antibiotics, but new antibiotics that can be inhaled (and more directly treat the infection) are being developed.
Once thought to have neurofibromatosis, Joseph Merrick (also known as "the elephant man") is now, in retrospect, thought by clinical experts to have had Proteus syndrome. This endocrine disease causes continued and abnormal growth of the bones, muscles, skin, and so on and can become completely debilitating with severe deformities occurring anywhere on the body.