Re: need for geometry (was pass/fail)

[Brian Whatcott <betwys@DIRECTVINTERNET.COM>]

At 07:28 AM 10/3/02, Tina, you wrote in part:
> ...of nursing students.  I explained if they didn't understand the
> numbers and get a sense of what is reasonable, a patient
> could die. (e.g., giving a patient a 1 kg of morphine instead of 1 g)
>
> Tina Fanetti


On a whim, I checked the effective dose of some narcotics,
in order to get a feeling for the relevant magnitudes.

Without personal experience of any of these materials,
I selected codeine as close to my experience (though a
restricted substance here, this is an over the counter drug in
several European countries. I counted it as a low multiple of
Acetaminophen or Paracetamol in analgesic potency)

One web accessible converter purported to show that
a gram of morphine was equivalent to several kilograms of
codeine.

On this basis the, a kilogram of morphine would be replacable by
several tons of Tylenol.

 Not the dose to give a patient, I'd think.


Brian Whatcott
  Altus OK                      Eureka!

This posting is the position of the writer, not that of SUNY-BSC, NAU or the AAPT.