hypospray n.

an injection device that forces a fine, high-pressure jet of fluid through the skin without breaking it

Chiefly associated with Star Trek.

Memory Alpha


Science

Star Trek

  • 1947 Asbury Park Evening Press (New Jersey) 21 Sept. 5/6

    The Hyprospray [sic] forces medicine thru the skin under 2,800 pounds pressure per square inch, in a jet so small it doesn’t hit enough pain cells to register…. The use of the Hypospray has not as yet been extended to intramuscular injections.

  • 1947 Life 24 Nov. 65/1

    Known as the Hypospray, this new device ‘blasts’ a microscopically small jet of medicinal fluid into the body tissues.

  • 1948 U.S. Patent Office Gazette 7 Sept. 69/1

    Hypospray. R. P. Scherer Corporation, Detroit, Mich... For Hypodermic Injection Devices.

  • 1950 ‘J. Holbrook’ Ultimate Quest in Super Science Stories Sept. 49/2 page image Jack Vance bibliography

    Chiram went to the medicine chest, loaded a hypospray. He motioned; Galt and Julius held Jay’s arms and legs; Chiram pressed the trigger, and the opiate seeped through Jay’s pale skin, into his blood, into his brain.

  • 1951 J. Vance Masquerade on Dicantropus in Startling Stories Sept. 92/1 page image Jack Vance bibliography

    He washed out the hypospray, returned the Guide to the rack, all with a sudden self-conscious awkwardness.

  • 1953 ‘J. Chain’ Captives in Astounding Science-Fiction Jan. 143/1 page image Julian Chain bibliography

    Lloyd emerged into consciousness sharply under the influence of the neutralizing hypospray.

  • 1963 F. Pohl Five Hells of Orion in Worlds of If Jan. 29/1 page image Frederik Pohl bibliography

    An hour later, with food in his belly and something from the surgeon’s hypospray in his bloodstream to clear his brain, he was in the captain’s cabin.

  • 1972 J. Blish Star Trek 5 68 James Blish

    Getting up again, he went through McCoy’s hypospray rack until he found one of a dozen all labeled adrenaline.

  • 1994 L. A. Graf Firestorm ii.17

    McCoy recrossed the sickbay, hypospray in one hand, data chip in the other.

  • 2013 SFX (#233) May 37/2 page image

    JJ [Abrams] gave Star Trek movies a much-needed shot in the arm (hypospray, naturally), reinventing a universe that had started to become stale.


Research requirements

antedating 1947

Last modified 2022-10-03 14:40:48
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.