Fowler's Solution and the Evolution of the Use of Arsenic in Modern Medicine.

While arsenic has been used medicinally and as a poison for thousands of years, Fowler's solution, an arsenic compound, has had a fascinating history in medicine during the past 200 years. The use of Fowler's solution was first described and published as a treatment for malaria and syphilis in the late 1700s. Many clinical applications for Fowler's solutions have been studied and utilized over the years, but toxicities have limited its utility. Even so, arsenic trioxide, chemically related to Fowler's solution, was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for treating acute promyelocytic leukemia. The history of Fowler's solution, its applications and uses, and benefits and risks are discussed.

The emerging role of titrimetry in late nineteenth-century industrial problem solving: the example of trace analysis for perchlorate in Chile saltpetre.

Trace analysis is usually associated with high-sensitivity analysis instrumentation. It became fully established from the 1960s following consensus among different groups of practitioners over protocols, reference materials, sensitivity, and accuracy and precision. As a consequence, wet chemical methods have been relegated to a secondary role, contrasting with their tremendous historical significance in detecting, identifying, and estimating small amounts of material. This is particularly relevant to the state-of-the-science analytical determinations stimulated by the effect of minor components in commodities of commercial importance. Here, I select a single example: attempts made during the 1890s to determine the amount of potassium perchlorate (KCIO4) that occurs in Chile saltpetre (sodium nitrate). The application of titrimetry, particularly the adaptation of Volhard's method for chloride analysis, was crucial in the efforts to estimate perchlorate in the nitrate used for explosives and to track the impact of perchlorate concentrations on certain important agricultural crops.

Sir Charles Locock and potassium bromide.

On 12 May 1857, Edward Sieveking read a paper on epilepsy to the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society in London. During the discussion that followed Sir Charles Locock, obstetrician to Queen Victoria, was reported to have commented that during the past 14 months he had used potassium bromide to successfully stop epileptic seizures in all but one of 14 or 15 women with 'hysterical' or catamenial epilepsy. This report of Locock's comment has generally given him credit for introducing the first reasonably effective antiepileptic drug into medical practice. However examination of the original reports raises questions as to how soundly based the accounts of Locock's comments were. Subsequently, others using the drug to treat epilepsy failed to obtain the degree of benefit that the reports of Locock's comments would have led them to expect. The drug might not have come into more widespread use as a result, had not Samuel Wilks provided good, independent evidence for the drug's antiepileptic efficacy in 1861.

The original desensitizers: strontium and potassium salts.

Many patients complain of teeth that are painful when exposed to a variety of harmless thermal and tactile stimuli. Sensitive tooth necks and root surfaces frequently are the unintentional by-products of aggressive oral hygiene practices and periodontal treatment. Dentists and the afflicted patients have resorted to many remedies for this common form of dental pain. In the past, many of these purported treatments were based on a fragmentary knowledge of the anatomic substrate and physiological processes underlying dentin sensitivity. Much progress has been made identifying dentin permeability and intradental nerve excitability as physiological parameters that can be modified by desensitizing agents. In this paper, rather than provide a comprehensive or critical review of desensitizing treatment, I will discuss the rationale and some of the history behind two early and popular classes of dentifrice-applied desensitizing agents; strontium and potassium salts.

Samuel Wilks (1824-1911): neurologist and generalist of the Mid-Victorian Era.

Sir Samuel Wilks, sometime Physician to Guy's Hospital and President of the Royal College of Physicians (1896-99), was regarded as the leading British scientific physician of his day. His contributions to gastroenterology, cardiology and clinical science in general have been emphasized in recent times. He also recognized that syphilis affected the internal organs as well as the skin. In 1866 he realised that epileptogenesis occurred in the cerebral cortex: independently of Sir Charles Locock (1799-1875), he discovered the antiepileptic properties of potassium bromide. He provided possibly the first account of alcoholic peripheral neuritis and published an early account of probable myasthenia gravis.

[The transition of psychotropic drugs in Japanese pharmacopoeia (JP) (Part 3). The transition of the standards and the test methods of potassium bromide between JP VI (1951) and JP XII (1991) and the comparison with BP XIV (1988)].

This is the study on the transition of the standards and test-methods for potassium bromide between JP VI (1951) and JP XII (1991), and the study on the comparison with BP XIV (1988). The results were as follows: the standards and test-methods for potassium bromide have gotten originality gradually by a suitable revision of JP VII (1961)--JP XII (1991) and have become accurate standards in practice for the parties concerned with medicine of our country. They are different from BP XIV (1988) on methodology but have established the effective standards for quality maintenance.