Barbital
Videos
Barbital, sold under the brand names Veronal for the pure acid and Medinal for the sodium salt, was the first commercially available barbiturate. It was used as a sleeping aid from 1903 until the mid-
Bottle for "Veronal" crystals, named after the Italian city of Verona, was the first commercially available barbiturate, manufactured by Bayer.
Sample of sodium barbital used as a pH buffer
Veronal from Bayer in glass tubes with cork caps - 10 tablets probably produced around 1940
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
Videos
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, art name Chōkōdō Shujin, was a Japanese writer active in the Taishō period in Japan. He is regarded as the "father of the Japanese short story", and Japan's premier literary award
Barbital
…in fixative solutions. As barbital is a controlled substance, barbital-based buffers have largely been replaced by other substances. Japanese writer Ryūnosuke Akutagawa deliberately overdosed on the drug in 1927, as did Un Chien Andalou actor Pierre Batcheff in 1932, Hungarian poet Gyula Juhász in 1937, German mathematician…
Akutagawa in 1927
Photograph dated 1919. The second subject from the left is Akutagawa. On the far left is Kan Kikuchi.
A manuscript page of "Horse Legs", 1925