Besides, most of these headache medicines, which for a time will relieve the pain of a headache, are narcotics, or pain-deadeners; and in more than very moderate doses they are poisons, and often dangerous ones.
"A Handbook of Health"
Woods Hutchinson
To lighten or counteract such a descent, the most powerful springs, checks, rockets, screens, deadeners, even if the whole Earth were engaged in their construction-would produce no more effect than so many spiderwebs.
"All Around the Moon"
Jules Verne