trade name of a tranquilizer drug introduced by the pharmaceutical company Hoffmann-La Roche in 1963. Safer and more effective than earlier sedative-hypnotic drugs, Valium quickly became a standard drug for the treatment of anxiety and one of the most commonly prescribed drugs of all time. Its association in the popular mind with harried middle-class housewives won it the nickname “Mother's Little Helper” in a 1966 song of that name by the British rock band the Rolling Stones (Rolling Stones, the). See also diazepam.