page_title: Bromide (language)
section_title: Literal meanings
hierarchical_section_title: Bromide (language) / Etymology / Literal meanings
caption_attribution_description: Burgess, Gelett Frank, 1866-1951
context_page_description: Bromide in literary usage means a phrase, cliché, or platitude that is trite or unoriginal. It can be intended to soothe or placate; it can suggest insincerity or a lack of originality in the speaker. Bromide can also mean a commonplace or tiresome person, a bore.
context_section_description: Bromide has both literal and figurative meanings.  The word originally derives from chemistry in which it can be used to describe a compound containing the element bromine, especially as a salt or bonded to an alkyl radical.  Bromine was isolated independently by two chemists, Carl Jacob Löwig (in 1825) and Antoine Jérôme Balard (in 1826) and the first appearance in print of "bromide" as a chemical term has been attributed to 1836.  
  By the 1870s silver halides, such as silver bromide, were in commercial use as a photographic medium. Over time, especially in British Commonwealth countries, the word "bromide" came to mean a photographic print; exactly when this occurred is not clear.  As digital photography replaced chemical-based photography at the end of the 20th century, this usage has declined.
  Bromine salts were discovered by the mid 19th century to have calming effects on the central nervous system. In 1857 it was first reported in a medical journal that potassium bromide could be used as an anti-epileptic drug. This action derived from the sedative effects that were calming and tranquilizing but not sleep inducing.  Its medicinal use grew so widespread in the latter half of that century that single hospitals might use as much as several tons in a year (the dose being a few grams per day per person).  American physician Silas Weir Mitchell, considered to be the father of neurology,  also reported lithium bromide to be an anticonvulsant and hypnotic in 1870; and later advocated use of all the bromides to calm "general nervousness." Sodium bromide had a narrower range of safety and efficacy but it was an ingredient in remedies such as Bromo-Seltzer that were popular for headaches and hangovers, in part due to the sedative effects.
caption: Gelett Burgess circa 1910
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