Concerning the toxicity of acetanilid and bicarbonate combinations for muscle-nerve preparations

Abstract

It is well known, through the work of Worth Hale,1 that acetanilid when given in combination with small doses of sodium bicarbonate, is less toxic than when administered in the same doses alone. The studies of Macht, Greenberg and Isaacs on the influence of antipyretics on the acuity of hearing2 have also shown an interesting difference between the effects of acetanilid when given alone and acetanilid when combined with sodium bicarbonate. The explanations given for the above peculiar synergism are most unsatisfactory. In connection with a pharmacological study of various antipyretics, the author investigated the effect of acetanilid solutions on muscle-nerve preparations which may throw some light upon the above-mentioned phenomena.Two gastrocnemius muscle-nerve preparations of a frog are immersed simultaneously in physiological sodium chloride solution and the limits of both the muscle and nerve excitability to the electric shocks of an induction coil are determined. One of the preparations is then imme...