[Acute toxicity of mercurial seed-dressing agents for rats and Japanese quail with special reference to coergistic effects]

Acute oral toxicity to rat of phenyl-mercury acetate (with 44 mg/kg on males and between 54 mg/kg and 77 mg/kg on females several tests) was found to be almost identical with that of methyl-mercury toluenesulphamide (59 mg/kg on males, 54 mg/kg on females). Japanese quail, on the other hand, proved to much more sensitive to the methyl compounds, the significant difference being 25 mg/kg of methyl-mercury toluenesulphamide against 71 kg/kg of phenyl-mercury acetate. Coergistic action of combinations of phenyl-mercury acetate with HCB, Lindan, and Carboxin on female rats generally was poor. No deviation was established from additive action by a recently proposed method of evaluation. Conventional evaluation by means of an association factor (V) gave an antagonistic effect for the combination with Lindan (V = 0.54) and a potentiative effect for the combination with Carboxin (V = 1.70).