494 
Antiseptics  and  the  War. 
f  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
November,  19 17. 
the  sterilization  of  the  water  supplies  in  the  field.  Dr.  Dakin,  in 
cooperation  with  Major  E.  K.  Dunham,  U.  S.  Army  Medical  Serv- 
ice, announced  recently  a  new  chlorine  derivative  for  the  steriliza- 
tion and  purification  of  polluted,  contaminated  or  suspicious  water. 
This  synthetic,  chemically  known  as  para-sulphondichloramin- 
benzoic  acid,  is  the  most  stable  of  the  recently  discovered  chlorine 
preparations  and  derivatives.  It  is  marketed  in  tablet  form  under 
the  name  of  halazone.  Each  tablet  contains  one  sixteenth  of  a 
grain  of  the  chemical  and  is  sufficient  to  disinfect  and  render  potable 
one  quart  of  the  most  polluted  sample  of  water  in  from  five  to 
thirty  minutes,  without  leaving  the  resultant  sterilized  product  un- 
pleasant to  the  taste. 
If  one  attempt  an  actual  study  of  the  working  conditions  in  the 
medical  units,  there  will  be  revealed  a  real  lack  of  systematic  and 
organized  method  of  continuity  in  treatment.  Such  a  state  of  affairs 
has  been  brought  to  notice  by  many  of  the  profession,  who  are  at 
present  in  this  country  for  other  service  or  for  recuperation.  A 
patient  at  the  company  hospital  may  receive  a  Wright  salt  pack  or  a 
Bipp  dressing — at  the  field  hospital,  eusol,  hypochlorous  acid  or 
dichloramin-T  may  be  used  in  the  treatment.  Should  he  be  trans^ 
ferred  to  the  base  hospital,  he  will  be  treated  with  Dakin-Carrel 
solution,  while  on  the  inland,  flavine,  brilliant  green  or  green  spray 
may  perhaps  be  used  to  effect  antisepsis. 
It  is  due  to  this  lack  of  cooperation  and  also  perhaps  to  the  effects 
of  personal  opinion  and  attempts  to  discover  specific  antiseptics 
that  we  are  compelled  to  familiarize  ourselves  with  all  of  these 
products  now  in  use,  until  the  future  will  decide  the  recognition  of 
the  best  antiseptics  and  methods  of  treatment. 
Flavine  and  Similar  Dyes. — Although  the  foregoing  antisep- 
tics of  the  chlorine  series  have  been  only  recently  discovered,  they 
are  nevertheless  already  extensively  used  in  this  country.  This  is, 
however,  not  the  case  with  the  antiseptics  of  the  flavine  group.  The 
latter  are  not  readily  obtainable  in  this  country  and  as  yet  are  only 
manufactured  by  two  or  three  firms  in  England.  This  is  due  to  the 
fact  that  the  compounds  are  elaborate  synthetics  and  much  experi- 
mentation was  necessary  before  a  product  equal  to  that  supplied  by 
the  German  manufacturing  plants  could  be  marketed. 
The  members  of  the  flavine  series  were  investigated  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  year  191 6  by  a  number  of  workers  in  the  Middlesex 
Hospital  in  England  (their  original  work  was  published  in  the 
