Definition of "Seconal"

Nearly every pharmaceutical house has its own brands, sold in tablets, solutions or brightly-colored capsules, on which its “detail men” keep doctors informed. Probably the most popular successors to Veronal are Seconal (“red birds” to the bootleg trade) and Nembutal (“yellow jackets”).

1952 October 13, Richard L. Williams, “‘To sleep: perchance…’”, in Life, volume 33, number 15, page 110

In spite of the seconal he was eaten up by his nerves. His face was covered with sweat.

1953, Raymond Chandler, chapter 29, in The Long Goodbye, New York: Ballantine, published 1971

Each night she looked at the bottle of Seconals with affection. She never could do this without the dolls. She would have spent sleepless nights, smoking, worrying—and she would have lost her nerve.

1966, Jacqueline Susann, Valley of the Dolls, page 227

Doctor, they can stand on the window ledge and threaten to splatter themselves on the pavement below, they can pile the Seconal to the ceiling—I may have to live for weeks and weeks on end in terror of these marriage-bent girls throwing themselves beneath the subway train, but I simply cannot, I simply will not, enter into a contract to sleep with just one woman for the rest of my days.

1969, Philip Roth, Portnoy’s Complaint‎, New York: Vintage, published 1994, page 104

His horror of insomnia, compounded with a family history of compulsive worrying, caused him to down three or four Placidyls, Seconals, Quaaludes, or Tuinals almost every night—and often it was a combination of all four.

1985, Priscilla Presley, Sandra Harmon, Elvis and Me, Putnam, page 151