ACTOL. — Actol, or lactate of silver, is a bactericidal agent recommended by Crede and Bayer as a powerful disin fectant for wounds. It forms a soluble compound with the secretions, and this, being absorbed, influences beneficially not only the lesion treated, but also the neighboring tissues. It is non-poison ous: a point of great superiority over other equally active antiseptics.
Dose. — Subcutaneously, the drug is injected in doses, dissolved in 1 drachm of water. This may be repeated frequently. Locally, actol is used in the proportion of 1 to 4000; stronger solu tions tend to color the skin of the hands.
Physiological Action. — were injected with 0.03 to 0.04 per cent. of their body-weight of lactate of silver, and received subsequently, after an in terval varying from ten minutes to three hours, half a drop of a violent cholera culture. In every case the animals suc cumbed as rapidly as those used in con trolling the results. Similar experiments with other animals and virulent diseases have given the same results, showing that actol possesses no value as a general disinfectant.
A series of experiments performed by Marx, however, have shown actol to be a powerful local disinfectant. Two series of researches with anthrax bacilli showed that, in the first place, it protected the seat of injection completely against the swarms of micro-organisms in the blood and that it had an actual local bacteri cidal action in respect to these bacilli.
In spite of its failure to produce an antitoxic serum, actol is one of the most powerful and at the same time most harmless bactericidal agents at present before the profession. Marx (Centralb.
f. Bakteriol., Nos. 15 and 16, '97).
Therapeutics.—Actol may be injected under the skin in surgical affections. Credo has thus administered 15 grains in solution without witnessing the least un toward effect. Two grains to the ounce of water must not be surpassed in strength, however, lest the solution cause coagulation of the albumin of the sub cutaneous tissue and arrest the dissemi nation of the remedy. In anthrax, fu runcle, and erysipelas it is said to be effective when used in the above manner.
It may also be used in 1 to 4000 solu tions as a mouth-wash, gargle, etc., in inflammatory and infectious disorders, owing to the favorable influence of silver salts upon mucous membranes in general.