Scorpion Bite Treatment With Chlorpromazine

Abstract

To the Editor:— A few years ago, while working in Arizona on Indian reservations for the Public Health Service, I treated scorpion bites on three occasions. I learned from my colleagues that there was little to do for these patients but sedate them with barbiturates and observe them for a day or two if they seemed to have very toxic effects. This required in some cases huge or repeated doses of barbiturates and could take hours of observation. During the treatment of my first case in a 4-year-old girl, she appeared to be psychotic and I administered a small amount of chlorpromazine, intravenously. This was after approximately three hours of unsuccessful atempts at sedation with barbiturate, a total amount of a fantastic 160 mg of phenobarbital. The chlorpromazine yielded dramatic results within minutes. Subsequently I treated two similar reactions in 8- and 10-year-old boys with chlorpromazine intramuscularly with the same