Pharmacology of phenol esters “ginger paralysis.”

✍ Scribed by J.S.X.

• Book ID: 104128909
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1933
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 78 KB
• Volume: 215
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0016-0032
• DOI: 10.1016/s0016-0032(33)90089-7

✦ Synopsis

Pharmacology of Phenol Esters (' Ginger Paralysis."--Early in 1930, a number of cases of so-called "ginger paralysis" occurred in many sections of the United States.

The poisoning was ascribed to the action of triorthocresyl phosphate which had been used as an adulterant of the fluid extract of ginger ingested by the victims. MAURICE I. SMITH, E. W. ENGEL, AND E. F. STOHLMAN (Nut. Inst. Zealth Bul. No. 160, 1-53, 1932) have made an extensive study of the pharmacology of twelve esters derived from various phenols. Of these esters, only three (triphenyl phosphate, triorthocresyl phosphate, and triorthocresyl phosphite) possessed specific neurotoxic properties, i.e. had a selective action more or less limited to certain well-defined physiological units of the nervous system, in which they produced degenerative changes.

After a latent period, these changes became manifest in the form of characteristic sequelae. A detailed description of the minute changes produced by these poisons in the nerve cells and the nerve tracts is given by R. D.