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More than 2,500 barbiturates have been synthesized. At the height of their popularity, about 50 were marketed for human use.
Recent studies have shown that the number of medication errors increases in relation to the number of orders that are verified per pharmacist, per work shift.
In 1864, the first barbiturate (barbituric acid) was synthesized.
The use of salicylates dates back 2,500 years to Hippocrates’s recommendation of willow bark (from which a salicylate is derived) as an aid to the pains of childbirth. However, overdosage of salicylates can harm body fluids, electrolytes, the CNS, the GI tract, the ears, the lungs, the blood, the liver, and the kidneys and cause coma or death.
Approximately 25% of all reported medication errors result from some kind of name confusion.