The intravenous barbiturates

Adolf von Baeyer synthesised barbituric acid in 1864 by reacting malonic acid with urea. Barbituric acid is clinically inert, and it was not until the synthesis of diethyl barbituric acid in. 1882 that a clinically useful sedative became available. Named "Veronal" by Fischer, he and von Mering first described its use in 1903. There followed many derivatives of the basic barbiturate molecule, and the development of intravenous anaesthesia. Although many had brief periods of popularity, it was sodium thiopentone which outlasted them all. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.