Reaction after Intravenous Injection of Antimony, and Its Control by the Use of Normal Saline for the Solution

To the Editor, The Indian Medical Gazette. Sir,?Dr. Brahmachari advises the use of sodium chloride in making up antimony solutions for injection, ' and Drs. Napier and Muir state that the use of sodium chloride does not matter much and their injections can be given without sodium chloride. I have recently noticed in my kala-azar centres that while using scale preparation of sodium antimony tartrate manufactured by Mercks, it does not make any difference whether sodium chloride is added or not; but while using the scale preparation of antimony by B. & B. severe reactions followed after intravenous injection of antimony when given without sodium chloride, but the reaction is much modified by the addition of sodium chloride in the solution. The following cases of kala-azar showed the reaction rather severely after the injection of sodium antimony tartrate (B. & B.) without the addition of sodium chloride with the solution. The injections were given twice in the week. Name. O rt