Poison to Taste

When Marion Gleason was a busy housewife with four small children, she had an experience that leaves any mother limp: the maid who gave year-old Peter his morning tablespoonful of cod-liver oil picked up the wrong bottle one day, and the baby became violently ill. The bottle contained a strong disinfectant. Peter recovered (he is now, at 31, a radiologist). Last week, thanks largely to that experience, the name of his mother, Marion N. Gleason, appeared as senior author (although she has no degree in medicine or chemistry) over the names of two double-doctorate professors and co-authors of a massive, 1,160-page volume: Clinical Toxicology of Commercial Products.*

Marion Gleason, 66, raised her family in Rochester, N.Y., and in 1945 helped set up a state safety-planning program. From this she slid into a post as research assistant in pharmacology at the University of Rochester, and did what came naturally--concentrated on the effects of chemicals widely used in cosmetics, household disinfectants and cleaning fluids, dyes, paints, insecticides and shoe polishes.

The trouble in far too many cases of accidental poisoning, including those involving children, is that they are caused by proprietary preparations whose ingredients are not listed on the label. So even if a doctor is called at once, he may not know whether to treat the victim for acid or alkali, arsenic or strychnine poisoning. For such dilemmas, the book counsels: "As soon as vomiting occurs, or if it does not occur within a few minutes, give the patient several teaspoonfuls of 'universal antidote' "--a mixture of two parts activated charcoal, one part magnesium oxide and one part tannic acid.

The manual, not intended for family use, is designed for physicians, first-aid stations, and particularly the 60 poison-antidote centers now being set up across the U.S. In one alphabetical section (more than 800 pages), it lists 15,000 products by their trade names, with the chemical content where the manufacturers are willing to disclose it. There is a wealth of detail on household compounds, the poisons they contain, and the antidotes. Samples:

ACK-ACK INSECT SPRAY (DDT): wash out the stomach, give cathartic of sodium sulfate.

AEROSOL "BOMBS" (pyrethrins): use universal antidote, wash out the stomach, give oxygen, artificial respiration.

BAY RUM (ethyl alcohol): wash out the stomach with warm water or sodium bicarbonate, give coffee as a stimulant.

DRANO (caustic soda): drink lots of water or milk, counteract the alkali with a weak acid such as diluted vinegar, lemon or orange juice.

MOUSE-NOTS (strychnine): induce vomiting or give up to eight heaping teaspoonfuls of universal antidote in water, inject barbiturates to stop convulsions.

PRESTONE (ethylene glycol) : wash stomach with very dilute potassium permanganate, give caffeine as stimulant, oxygen and artificial respiration if needed.

TRIOX (arsenic): wash stomach with two to three quarts of water followed by glass of milk, give sodium sulfate as cathartic, give oxygen and transfusions as needed.

* Williams & Wilkins; $16.

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