Some experimental and clinical observations on the anticonvulsive action of paraldehyde.

In the practice of neurosurgical operations the convulsions occasionally elicited during cortical manipulations or produced by electrical stimulations may sometimes be difficult to control, and may give rise in some cases to dangerous convulsive states that may even end fatally. Barbiturates and other common drugs may fail to stop such convulsions quickly, as we have observed in some of our cases. We have recently tried paraldehyde by intravenous injection in the treatment of such convulsive states, and the good results obtained have been the basis for an experimental and clinical study of ithis drug. In the literature we have found that Cervello (1884) was the first to use paraldehyde by mouth and -rectum for narcosis. Nitzescu and lacobovici (1934) recommended paraldehyde by intravenous injection (0-15 to 0-2 c.cm. per kg.) as a basal anaesthetic before the administration of ether. Wechsler (1940) has also successfully employed the slow intravenous injection of 1 c.cm. of paraldehyde for the treatment of status epilepticus.