Inoculation of Human Volunteers with Strains of Coe Virus Isolated in Britain

MEDICAL JOURNALhypokalaemia with which administration of this drug may be associated (Slater and Nabarro, 1958).However, hydrochlorothiazide has little inhibitory activity on carbonic anhydrase (de Stevens et al., 1958) and yet its diuretic action and the tendency to cause potassium depletion are similar (Havard and Fenton, 1959; Platts, 1959).Hydroflumethiazide also causes less bicarbonate and more chloride excretion (Edmonds and Wilson, 1959), but the tendency to produce hypokalaemia is the same (Blagg, 1959).We have found that benzthiazide causes a loss of chloride disproportionate to that of sodium.Bicarbonate excretion was unaltered, but potassium loss in the urine occurred just as readily.In our patients with congestive cardiac failure the mean potassium excretion after benzthiazide was 54 mEq/day, compared with 59 mEq /day after chlorothiazide.Apart from this we encountered no toxic effects.The similar chemical structure of benzthiazide suggests that this drug may not be free from the occasional hazards of chloro- thiazide (Nordqvist et al., 1959), though the smaller dosage may be advantageous. SummaryBenzthiazide is a new oral diuretic chemically related to chlorothiazide.The action is similar to that of chlorothiazide, and a comparison of the two drugs suggests that 100 mg. of benzthiazide is approximately equivalent to 1 g. of chlorothiazide.The action of the two drugs differed in two ways; after benzthiazide the urinary loss of chloride exceeded that of sodium, and bicarbonate excretion was not increased.In the treatment of oedema there was no less tendency to cause hypokalaemia.