[An investigation for (clinico-) toxicological screening of detergents]

In recent years, we sporadically had some cases of accidental ingestion of drinks contaminated with detergent. In such cases it is necessary to identify the detergent for medical care or criminal investigation. Therefore, we made an attempt to establish a simple screening method of detergents, including household detergents, dishwashing detergents and shampoos using color reaction, thin-layer chromatography (TLC) and gel-permeation chromatography (GPC). In color reaction and TLC tests, it was possible to identify the individual sample. In the GPC test, several samples showed characteristic chromatograms, and even the same types of detergents did not give the same chromatogram patterns. From the above-mentioned results, it was suggested that this simple and rapid method may practically be useful to predict the contamination of detergent when controls are available, although not suitable for classification of detergent types.