Bizarre MedTech Question

[sraun]

AKA AKICILJ

I assume that the nitroglycerin they put under your tongue for heart problems is the same as the explosive. Is this an accurate assumption? If so, how and when did they discover that the stuff that goes BOOM! so enthusiastically would also dilate blood vessels?

Comments

[davidschroth.livejournal.com]

I'm certainly of the belief/understanding that the assumption is accurate.

And once again, Google to the rescue:

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bsc/cep/2000/00000027/00000004/art03240

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I don't know, but my great-grandmother was always afraid she was going to explode if she tripped and fell.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Nah. You just have to be careful not to buy the chewable brands.

[gomeza.livejournal.com]

1. yes, it is.

2. by noticing, and then studying, the physiological effects it had on blasting monkeys who absorbed the stuff through their skin.

[azurelunatic]

And it's evidently notable if one picks up dynamite with one's bare hands, as it does absorb through the skin. (My father did this, playing with unstable dynamite as a kid. Yes, my father should have been better-supervised with explosives. No, he didn't die.)

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Glycerin was well known a long time ago as a byproduct of soapmaking and as a natural solvent. The properties of nitric acid and sulfuric acid were also known. Nitroglycerin wasn't invented until 1846 and even then they didn't figure out what it did right away. It wasn't made into dynamite until much later, from which we get the Nobel Prize.

These were all well known to alchemists too. It's my theory that nitroglycerin was independently invented several times. The alchemist picked up his new concoction shouting excitedly, "Eurek...."