Effects of bis (tri-n-butyltin) oxide on the eyes of rabbits.

Bis(tri-n-butyltin) oxide and its various commercial preparations are widely used because of their bactericidal, fungicidal, algicidal, and insecticidal properties (Barnes and Stoner, 1958; Barnes and Stoner, 1959; Elsea and Paynter, 1958; van der Kerk and Luijten, 1954). The commercial preparations of TBTO' are used in industry and in agriculture and as disinfectants in hygiene services (Ascher and Nissim, 1964; Daum, 1965; Grun and Fricker, 1963; Hedges, 1957; Hudson, Sanger, and Sproul, 1959; Stecker, 1957). With the growing use of TBTO and its preparations an increasing number of people are coming into contact with them with the risk of injury, particularly to exposed tissues, such as the skin and eyes. In our experiments we used TBTO as the commercial product Lastanox2, which is identical with many other similar products having TBTO as their basis, such as Hollicide, bioMET, TBTO, FungiBan, Tin anti-slime, etc. All these products are similar in their active component (TBTO) and therefore in their effects and use, the only differences being in the vehicle used and in the TBTO content. The only effective substance contained in Lastanox is TBTO. Because only very few experimental studies on the harmful effects of TBTO on individual tissues have been published and, to our knowledge, none has been published on the eyes we decided to investigate the effects of TBTO on the eyes of rabbits.