Sulfonal

Sulfonal Image:
https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_209587

Sulfonmethane (also known as acetone diethylsulfone) was discovered as a hypnotic drug. Sulfonmethane was to be one of Bayer's first profitable pharmaceutical products. It retained its popularity until the introduction of the more rapidly acting barbiturates rendered it obsolete. Newer and safer sedatives are used now.

Suvorexant:
https://drugs.ncats.io/drug/W00D22B592

A Digest of the More Important Publications on Sulfonal-Bayer (1888) (24 pages):
https://books.google.com/books?id=3SGgAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover

"Sulfonal-Bayer" the new hypnotic of Professor Baumann & Kast. (1888) (25 pages):
https://wellcomelibrary.org/item/b21455454

Clinical observations on the action of Sulfonal-Bayer (1889) (PDF 20 pages):
https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/ext/dw/101197084/PDF/101197084.pdf

• First synthesized in 1888
• Introduced as a hypnotic drug but now superseded by newer and safer sedatives
• It's either colorless crystalline or powdered form
• It produces lengthened sleep in functional nervous insomnia
• Very uncertain in its action, often failing to produce sleep when taken at bedtime, but producing drowsiness and sleep the following day
• It is unwise to use it continuously for more than a few days at a time, as it tends to produce the sulfonal habit
• Many fatal cases of sulfonal poisoning are on record, both from chronic poisoning and from a single large dose.

Its hypnotic power is not equal to that of chloral, but as it is not a depressant to the heart or respiration it can be used when morphine or chloral are contra-indicated.

• A sedative-hypnotic anesthetic drug
• Introduced in 1888

It is not as effective as trional.

Trional

Trional Image:
https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1215428

Definition of Sulfonethylmethane:
A crystalline hypnotic sulfone that is an ethyl analog of sulfonmethane:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/sulfonethylmethane

1899 Bayer Advertisement: Trional The Safest Hypnotic:

Maryland Medical Journal, Volume 42 (1899) (Bayer image on page 381):
https://books.google.com/books?id=3SGgAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover

• A sedative-hypnotic anesthetic drug
• Introduced in 1888
• First approved in 1895
• Appeared in Agatha Christie's "Murder on the Orient Express", "And Then There Were None" as a sleep inducing sedative

It has similar effects to sulfonal, except it is faster acting.