ANTIDOTE FOR POISONS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21467, 15 April 1933, Page 8 (Supplement)

ANTIDOTE FOR POISONS

METHYLTHOININ CHLORIDE P Several thousand persons are killed each year by carbon-monoxide gas and by cyanide. If half this number can be saved by the newly-discovered antidote, methylene blue, Dr. Matilda M. Brooks and Dr. J. C. Grieger, of San Francisco, will have made an epochal contribution to medicine and the welfare of mankind, says Science News Letter. Dr. Brooks, working in the department of zoology, University of California, hit upon the idea of using tho common bacteriological stain as an antidote for these two poisons, and Dr. Grieger, Director of Public Health, promptly put the idea into use, and two lives have already been saved. Mrs. Brooks was doing research in biology, working in pure science when sho made the methylene blue discovery. Earlier, investigators, chief among them Professor Otto Warbung, of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biology, Berlin, had found in connection with work on yeast cells and other organisms that methylene bluo counteracts the effect of cyanido and carbon monoxide on living tissues. Dr. Brooks took tho next step and tried tho effect of methylene blue on animals that had been poisoned with carbon monoxido or with cyanide. Sho found it a successful antidote with small mammals, such as mice and guinea-pigs, arid in a report of her work to the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine, in April, 1932, she suggested the use of methylene blue in human cases of cyanide or carbon-monoxide poisoning. When Dr. Grieger called on Drs. P. J. Hanzlik and C. D. Laeke, professors of pharmacology at Stanford University and the University of California, respectively, for modern methods of treating poison cases, they suggested to him, among other methods, the methylene blue method for cyanide and carbon monoxide. As a result of its successful use, methylene blue may become part of professional first-aid kits, such as those carried by nro and police rescue squads. The method used at tho Park Emergency Hospital, San Francisco, consists of injecting into the patient's vein a one per cent sterile aqueous solution of methylene bluo, which is listed in the United States Pharmacopoeia as methylthoinin chloride. In the first cyanide-poisoning caso reported, 50 cubic centimetres, or nearly 20z., were used. The patient stated that ho had taken 15 grains of potassium cyanide in about 4oz. of water. COAL GAS FOR POWER Stepping on the gas may como to have a real meaning before long, for it is likely that ordinary coal gas will be widely used for driving motor-cars, buses and lorries. It is excellent material for the purpose, but hitherto its drawback has been that it takes up a lot of room. The equivalent of a gallon of petrol is 260 cubic feet of gas, and 260 cubic feet is just about the space occupied by a complete car itself. Fortunately means have been found of compressing gas into very small space. At the Industrial Research Laboratories at Birmingham Dr. D. C. M. Walter has succeeded in bottling coal gas compressed at 30001 h. to tho square inch in small steel containers. A firm of manufacturers is ready to make cylinders for nearly double this pressure. A lorry could easily carry sufficient gas in this way for a journey of 100 miles without a refill. There seems no reason why people living far away in the coun- [ try should not light their homes and do their cooking by bottled gas. TESTS FOR OIL AREAS An area of a mile or more can be explored for oil-bearing strata in ono operation with tho aid of an electric detector, which finds oil to a depth of 3000 ft. or more, according to Popular Mechanics. The process consists of making two electrical contacts with the earth a mile or so apart. A heavily insulated copper cable is laid on the surface connecting the two contacts, and a potentiometer, ammeter and battery are interposed between them. Current passes through the cable and instruments, and the resistance through the earth and instruments is measured, the presence of oil-bearing strata being indicated when the resistance is one or two ohms or more. By repeated tests, it is said to be possible not only to locate oil-bearing layers, but also to determine their approximate depth below the surface.