ABSTRACT
The metabolism and pharmacokinetics of paracetamol are very important aspects of the clinical pharmacology of this drug. Even the development of paracetamol was based upon studies on drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics. It was found that the old analgesics, acetanilide and phenacetin, are both converted largely to paracetamol (Lester and Greenberg, 1947; Brodie and Axelrod, 1949). The subsequent confirmation of earlier work showing that paracetamol is an analgesic (Flinn and Brodie, 1948) and questions about the renal toxicity of phenacetin led to the cessation of the use of phenacetin and its replacement by paracetamol.
