Postmortem determination of the biological distribution of formic acid in methanol intoxication.

Two 25-year-old men were fatally intoxicated with methanol. The formic acid levels in their blood, urine, and organs were determined postmortem by headspace gas chromatography. The postmortem concentrations of formic acid in the two patients were the following: 0.32 and 0.23 mg/mL in blood, 2.27 and 0.47 mg/mL in urine, 0.11 and 1.17 mg/g in the brain, 0.54 and 0.51 mg/g in the liver, and 0.13 and 1.19 mg/g in the kidneys. The total amounts of formic acid in the gastric contents were 108 and 23.2 mg.