URINARY ANTISEPSIS

Abstract

The ideal internal urinary antiseptic must be a drug which is chemically stable, nontoxic, and nonirritating to the lower urinary tract; which is antiseptic in high dilution (in urine, as well as in water), and which is eliminated unchanged in high percentage by the kidney. There is no such drug known. A consideration of the properties possessed by phenolsulphonephthalein, however, shows that this compound comes very close to filling all these requirements. Phenolsulphonephthalein is chemically stable, nontoxic and nonirritating, and is eliminated by the kidney with incredible rapidity and completeness; but it has no antiseptic properties, excepting in water in its free acid form. (Clinically it is used as the monosodium salt.) This remarkable compound, synthesized in 1898 by Sohon,¹at Remsen's²suggestion, investigated later in Abel's³laboratory, and introduced into clinical use by Rowntree and Geraghty⁴twelve years later, has become the basis of the