[Poisoning with shoe dye. A clinical case].

The paper reports the case of a young male which was severely poisoned by anilyne shoe black. After a few hours, he was in a semicomatose state, accompanied by "very dark" arterial blood gases with oxygen tension in excess of 100 mmHg. Following the administration of intravenous methylene blue (2 mg/kg), methemoglobin was reduced to hemoglobin and the level of consciousness immediately improved.