NilEDICATIONS are one of the leading causes of fatal and nonfatal poisonings. Of all medications, salicylates (in children) and barbiturates (in adults) are most frequently involved in these poisonings. When these occur, the physician treating the victim may request a chemical analysis of a blood sample to confirm his clinical impression. A salicylate analysis is simple and rapid (1). However, ...

A retrospective analysis of the records of about 9,000 intravenous anaesthetics showed a striking relationship between dosage and induction complications. While the incidence of excitatory phenomena increased with dosage of thiobarbiturates, this effect was more marked with methylated barbiturates. The greater frequency of respiratory complications (cough, hiccough and laryngospasm) with high d...

Two patients with previous cerebral damage and seizures and three patients with acute inflammatory cerebral lesions developed status epilepticus. They were unresponsive to standard anticonvulsants, but anesthetic barbiturates (thiopental and pentobarbital) stopped the seizures promptly.

The majority of neurons at the origin of the spinocervical tract are driven by noxious stimulation of their receptive fields. Surprisingly, previous studies have encountered only a small percentage of nociceptive neurons within the terminus of the spinocervical tract, the lateral cervical nucleus (LCN). To determine if previous reports have underestimated the proportion of nociceptive LCN neuro...