Abstract
PHARMACEUTICAL conditions in Holland under the German occupation were reviewed in a lecture given before the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain on December 13 by Dr. C. J. Blok, chief pharmacist to the University and municipal hospitals of Amsterdam. About 1943, said Dr. Blok, many articles became so scarce that the General Office of Public Health found it necessary to limit the prescribing of the doctors. Cod liver oil was only to be prescribed for tuberculosis ; atropine only for Parkin-sonism and eyedrops ; pilocarpine only for eyedrops ; luminal only for epilepsy ; pepsine for serious stomach cases ; dermatol only for epilepsy. After the Germans had robbed the safe of the Organon factories, insulin also became very scarce. Dr. Blok went into considerable detail regarding the means taken to economize alkaloids for eye treatment, including the use of ointments instead of solutions. In September 1944 came the loss of gas and electricity, which meant that sterilization in operating rooms by heat had to be reduced to a minimum as the spirit and petrol which might have been employed were very scarce. Fortunately he himself had steam autoclaves by which sterile injections could still be prepared. Operating rooms had to resort to chemical sterilization with 4 per cent 'Lysol', or a mixture of borax carbol-formalin with a little sodium nitrite against rusting ; a very stable solution with quite effective sterilizing powers was 2 percent formalin, 2.5 percent phenol, 1.5 percent borax. Another difficulty was the impossibility of melting ampoule glass, due to lack of gas. This was overcome by using an acetylene lamp made from an ordinary bottle ; the temperature obtained was enough to melt glass, and the apparatus was used at home as a lamp.
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Dutch Pharmacy under the German Occupation. Nature 157, 72 (1946). https://doi.org/10.1038/157072c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/157072c0