Liver Necrosis From Paracetamol

Paracetamol was originally used therapeutically in the latter nineteenth century but did not receive much attention until after the 1940s when it was found to be a metabolite of phenacetin (Smith, 1958). It was given the approved name "Paracetamol " by the British Pharmacopoeia Commission in February, 1957, and was introduced into the 1963 edition of the British Pharmacopoeia. It has been considered as a possible sub- stitute for phenacetin (e.g., Comely & Ritter, 1956) following reports of interstitial nephritis allegedly due to phenacetin (e.g., Editorial, 1965). We decided to study the toxicity of paracetamol following previous work in this laboratory on the acute oral toxicity of phenacetin (Boyd, 1959 and 1960). The most interesting finding was that when death was delayed there was an associated necrosis of the liver.