DEATH FOLLOWING "TEST DRINK" OF ALCOHOL IN PATIENTS RECEIVING ANTABUSE®

Abstract

In 1948, after observing the severe symptoms that followed the ingestion of alcohol in patients taking tetraethylthiuramdisulfide (antabuse®), Jacobsen and Hald, of Denmark, conceived the idea that this drug might be useful in the treatment of chronic alcoholism.¹ These investigators, associated with Martensen-Larsen and other co-workers,² subsequently reported in some detail the chemistry and pharmacology of tetraethylthiuramdisulfide and their clinical results with 83 patients under treatment with this drug. These studies were received with much interest by the lay and medical press, and, as a result, clinical investigation spread to other countries, such as Sweden, England, Canada, and, finally, the United States. The significant information available has been reviewed by Glud,³ Dale and Ebaugh,⁴ and again by Jacobsen and Martensen-Larsen.⁵ Some of the short-term results have been promising, but long-term studies are still being anxiously awaited. It seems timely to temper the current trend of