Demonstration of ingested thinner

Taking a practical forensic case that provided an opportunity, an attempt was made to prove that paint thinner had been ingested by the victim. One ml of standard thinner solution, which was prepared by mixing toluene, ethyl acetate, and isobutanol, was given by gavage to rats, after which, on sacrifice of the animals, the distribution of thinner components in the body tissue and in the gastric contents was examined by gas chromatography, using the salting-out technique and the headspace method. Three thinner components and ethanol, a metabolite of ethyl acetate, were found to be present in the gastric contents, whereas only toluene was found in the blood and in the other tissue. From these results we thus have concluded that paint thinner taken can be proved by detecting the presence of ethyl acetate and isobutanol together with toluene in the stomach, whereas only toluene can be detected in the body fluids and the other tissue.