A PHARMACOLOGICAL AND THERAPEUTIC STUDY OF BENZYL ALCOHOL AS A LOCAL ANESTHETIC

1. Laboratory experiments with benzyl alcohol or phenmethylol show that it possesses powerful local anesthetic properties, on the one hand, and a very low toxicity as compared with other well-known local anesthetics on the other. 2. A series of clinical cases in which weak solutions of phenmethylol were administered as local anesthetics for the performance of surgical operations proved that the drug is an efficient local anesthetic also in practical surgery. 3. It is considered that the anesthetic efficiency, the low toxicity, the simple excretion of the drug by the organism and the ease with which benzyl alcohol solutions can be sterilized, will render it a useful therapeutic agent in medicine and surgery.