inaprovaline

Inaprovaline is a fictional drug in the Star Trek universe, which is frequently called upon to perform various functions by medical characters, therefore serving a sort of wonder-drug function for the shows. It appears in all series from Star Trek: The Next Generation on. Its usefulness to humans is even "discovered" by the Dr. Phlox character in the prequel series Star Trek: Enterprise. In the prior series, Star Trek: Voyager, the Emergency Medical Hologram finds reasons to use the drug quite frequently, making it appear to be an easy crutch for the writers to refer to when a scene calls for any sort of need for some kind of medical treatment.

The drug appears to be a cardio stimulant and synaptic stimulant, although sometimes (as is occasionally true of real drugs) it appears to be used when almost the opposite of those effects would be called for. Sometimes, though, the generic use of inaprovaline to treat anything reaches comic proportions, as with an episode of Voyager: A human being is genetically changed from human to alien, so completely that there is not enough human DNA remaining to change her back. The doctor treats her with "an inaprovaline compound" that causes her to revert cosmetically to human form. This, of course, has no apparent relationship to any "normal" inaprovaline usage.

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