Am.  Jour.  Pharm. ) 
July,  1913.  J 
Phylacogens. 
quested  on  several  occasions  to  issue  the  statement  that  they  are  not 
dangerous.  They  cannot  make  any  such  a  statement  because,  under 
certain  circumstances,  they  may  be  dangerous.  The  proper  state- 
ment is  that  relatively  (comparatively)  they  are  not  dangerous. 
Sterile  water  or  salt  solution,  improperly  used,  might  be  dangerous. 
There  is  not  a  drug  in  the  entire  Pharmacopoeia  that  is  not  dangerous 
under  some  circumstances.  Many  of  the  more  commonly  used 
drugs  are  dangerous  under  certain  conditions.  Morphine,  Strych- 
nine, Chloroform,  Ether,  and  so  on  through  the  entire  list  of 
powerful  drugs — all  are,  in  their  proper  place  and  given  in  the 
proper  doses,  and  in  the  proper  conditions,  valuable  therapeutic 
agents,  but  improperly  used,  under  the  wrong  conditions,  and  in 
too  large  doses,  they  are  certainly  dangerous,  and  so  with 
Phylacogen. 
As  a  result  of  a  great  amount  of  experimental  work  on  animals, 
it  was  found  that  the  average  least  quantity  of  Phylacogen  re- 
quired to  kill  an  animal,  when  injected  intravenously  with  Phylaco- 
gen, was  1 1.9  per  kilo  of  body  weight  of  the  animal,  and  that, 
by  a  simple  problem  in  mathematics,  it  was  shown  that  it  would 
require  about  800  c.c.  to  kill  a  man  of  150  pounds  in  weight.  It, 
therefore,  is  perfectly  plain  to  be  seen  that,  under  some  circum- 
stances, Phylacogen  is  dangerous. 
The  literature  suggests  the  administration  of  Phylacogen  either 
subcutaneously  or  intravenously,  and  the  range  of  dosage  recom- 
mended is  as  follows : 
Subcutaneous  dose  is  2  to  20  c.c,  beginning  with  2  c.c,  and 
gradually  increasing  to  10  c.c. 
Intravenous  dose  ranges  from  %  of  a  c.c,  to  5  c.c 
What  does  this  mean  as  regards  the  relative  potency  of  Phy- 
lacogen? It  means  just  this :  That  the  least  quantity  of  Phylacogen 
required  to  kill  a  human,  weighing  150  pounds,  on  the  average 
would  theoretically  be  about  800  c.c.  "  On  the  average  "  indicates 
that  in  some  instances  it  might  take  less  and  in  some  other  instances 
it  might  require  more  to  kill  a  150  pound  man.  If  Phylacogen 
was  administered  to  a  sick  human  it  might  require  a  good  deal 
less  under  some  conditions  to  kill  the  patient  than  it  would  in  the 
case  of  a  perfectly  well  person,  but  notwithstanding  this  fact,  the 
largest  dose  suggested  in  the  literature,  for  subcutaneous  injections, 
is  20  c.c,  or  1/40  of  the  average  lethal  dose  for  a  150  lb.  human. 
Patients  have  received  doses  as  large  as  50  c.c,  administered  at  one 
