Word: boric
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...BORIC ACID, once a favorite remedy for minor irritations such as diaper rash and prickly heat, can be fatal. Most insidious are the cases in which frequent application allows boric acid to be absorbed into the body through broken or irritated skin or through mucous membranes. Since the body is slow to eliminate the chemical, it accumulates in the liver and kidneys; in infants it sometimes causes nausea, convulsions and death. For years pediatricians have been wary of boric acid. Now a research team at St. John's University College of Pharmacy in New York City has developed...
IRRIGATION (douche) to wash out the sperm after intercourse. The water may be plain, or have added boric acid, vinegar or proprietary compounds sold "for feminine hygiene." Relatively ineffective...
...Standard dusting powders containing less than 5% boric acid can be safely used for babies. So reported two Manhattan pediatricians, Alfred J. Vignec and Rose Ellis. The much-publicized infant deaths due to boric acid, they added, have largely resulted from the misuse of solutions with a high boric acid content, often swallowed by newborn infants. Their recommendation: undiluted, powdered boric acid should not be dispensed freely over drug counters...
Fisher was not talking about the cases where the baby swallows boric-acid solution, or the powder gets mixed with the feeding formula by mistake. The news in his report was that the chemical can sometimes be absorbed through breaks in the skin in sufficient quantities to be fatal...
...seemingly mysterious deaths of six babies, from three weeks to seven months old (four in Baltimore, one in Boston, one in New York City) were traced .by Dr. Fisher to boric-acid poisoning. The supposedly soothing chemical had been absorbed through inflamed skin and had damaged tissues in the pancreas, liver and kidneys. Young babies are especially susceptible, Fisher thinks; he has found no fatalities in infants over seven months. Further finding: there is little danger with commercial baby powders in which boric acid is diluted with inert talc...