America Helps Germany in “the Battle for Borocaine”

Manufactured by Sharp& Dohme of Baltimore, each corked vial (above) contained 20 soluble hypodermic tablets of Borocaine “under license from the British Drug Houses, Ltd., London.” Because each tablet contained 0.1 g of procaine borate, dissolving a tablet in 5 ml of sterile water yielded a 2% solution of this ester local anesthetic. Unfortunately for Borocaine’s British licensing firm, the American Medical Association’s Chemical Laboratory determined that the “formula 2(C13H20O2N2), 4H2O, 5B2O3, as given by the manufacturer …is incorrect; on the other hand, it appears that borocaine has the formula C13H20O2N2.5HBO2” and is “identical to the one first prepared by Einhorn and Uhlfelder some years ago” in Germany. And this is how America helped Germany in “the Battle for Borocaine.” (Copyright © the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology.)
Source: Anesthesiology - Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: research