Letter: Accidents on holiday.

Abstract

In our experience many doctors and medical students believe that dextrose is a carbohydrate that is different from glucose and do not realise that dextrose is the name given in the British Pharmacopoeia (1973) and the British Pharmaceutical Codex (1973) for glucose monohydrate. This causes confusion in understanding disease and in treatment. Glucose is the scientifically acceptable trivial name for D(+)-glucose. We make a plea for the universal use in medicine of "glucose" as the only name for this compound and of "glucose monohydrate" when it is necessary to specify that the glucose molecule is not anhydrous (as it carries one molecule of water)-and for the abandonment by pharmacists of the name "dextrose." D N BARON