Isolation and Identification of Parathion in Biological Material

NUMEROUS methods have hitherto been proposed for the isolation of parathion from biological material and for its identification. Most of these methods, have, however, defects which cannot be overlooked, resulting in either a small yield of poison (for example, steam distillation) or a highly impure extract (for example, isolation with the Stas–Otto method). Among the identification methods, the Averell and Norris 1 reaction has proved aspecific, while ultra-violet spectrophotometry and paper chromatography are highly disturbed by the impurities present in the extracts.