Ueber eine neue Klasse von Schlafmitteln. Contained in: Die Therapie der Gegenwart, pp. [97]-101. March 1903.

Berlin & Vienna:: Urban & Schwarzenberg, 1903., 1903. 4to. (265 x 177 mm) pp. [97]-144. Modern black cloth boards, gilt-stamped spine title. Bookplate of Andras Gedeon. Fine. FIRST PRINTING of the discovery of diethyl barbituric acid. Fischer received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1902. "Berlin chemist Emil Fischer and Joseph von Mering synthesized diethyl barbituric acid or barbitone (Veronal) in 1902. They described their discovery in "Ueber eine neue Klasse von Schlafmitteln", Therapie Gegenwart 44:97-101, 1903. The parent compound, barbituric acid, was first synthesised by Adolf von Baeyer in 1864, but barbituric acid is not itself pharmacologically active. Fischer and von Mering soon realized that their new drug was a sedative. Veronal represented a huge improvement on the medley of existing agents. It didn't taste unpleasant. It had few adverse side effects. Unlike foul-tasting potassium bromide, Veronal acted at therapeutic levels far beneath the toxic dose. Some 2,500 barbiturates were synthesized over the next century. More than fifty have been marketed as sedatives. In 1912, phenobarbital was introduced under the brand-name Luminal. From 1912 until around 1960 barbiturates were the mainstay of pharmacological treatments of anxiety and insomnia. The development of soluble barbiturates suitable for use as intravenous anaesthetics still lay in the future." [BLTC Research, UK]. / REFERENCES: Cole, Milestones of Anesthesia, 29; Garrison & Morton 1892; Gedeon, Science and technology in medicine, pp. 372-5. (Inventory #: S14269)