Abstract
Two grams of sulfanilamide, sulfapyridine and sulfathiazol were ingested in successive experiments by 4 patients from whom bile was draining through tubes inserted in the bile duct after operations upon the biliary tract. Intervals of 3 or 4 days separated the experiments upon each subject. A satisfactory test with sulfapyridine was not obtained in one instance. Specimens of bile were collected for 4 successive 4-hour periods in each experiment. The first period preceded, and the others followed the ingestion of the drug. Samples of urine were collected simultaneously with the bile specimens after the drug had been given, and a sample of blood was drawn at the midpoint of each of these 3 4-hour periods. The free compounds were determined in the specimens of bile by the diazo technic of Bratton and Marshall 1 in the presence of acetone. Since the usual methods for clarifying solutions, including the one used upon bile by Hubbard and Anderson 2 precipitated a rather high proportion of added sulfathiazol, the bile was clarified by the use of 2 successive precipitations with barium—first in alkaline solution as the phosphotungstate and then in acid solution as the sulfate. The sulfonamide drugs could be determined with an accuracy of about 5%, or, if present in very low concentrations, to the nearest 0.1 mg per 100 cc by this procedure. Control specimens, analyzed as a part of each experiment, gave no red color by the technic. The concentrations of the drugs in the urine were determined after dilution, one part to 100, by the same diazo technic. Blood analyses were carried out as described by Bratton and Marshall. 1
The results upon the blood and bile of different subjects were qualitatively similar, except for such variations in actual blood concentrations as would be expected from the varying ease of absorption of the different compounds studied.
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