When thalidomide is administered orally to animals, only a small amount of the unchanged drug is excreted in the urine (for example, Beckman, 1962). The major portion of the compound is broken down and excreted as transformation products. After administration of the drug to man, rats and rabbits, Smith, Williams & Williams (1962) isolated 4-phthalimidoglutaramic acid from rabbit urine and detected it in human and rat urine. They also noted the presence in the urine of a fluorescent metabolite which they considered to be related to 3-hydroxyphthalic acid. Using [14C]-thalidomide, Faigle, Keberle, Riess & Schmid (1962) showed that the urine of dogs given thalidomide contained 2-and 4-phthalimidoglutaramic acid, 2-phthalimidoglutaric acid, a-(o-carboxybenzamido)glutarimide, 2-(o-carboxybenzamido)glutaric acid, phthalic acid and small amounts ofunchanged thalidomide, whilst the faeces contained only unchanged thalidomide.In order to emphasize the complexity of the problem of identifying the metabolites of thalidomide it should be pointed out that there are twelve possible hydrolysis products of (±)-thalidomide of which eleven can occur in (+)-and (-)-forms. The number of possible optically active products, including (+)-and (-)-thalidomide, is thus twenty-four. If thalidomide is hydroxylated in vivo, this could occur in the 3-or 4-position of the aromatic ring and possibly in three different positions (3', 4' and 5') in the glutarimide ring (see formula). Disregarding hydroxylation of the glutarimide ring and considering only the hydroxylation of the aromatic ring, there are twelve 3-hydroxy-and twelve 4-hydroxy-metabolites possible, and twenty-two of these can occur in (+)-and (-)-forms, the two compounds not containing an optically active carbon atom being 3-and 4-hydroxy-Q) NC H2 H phthalic acids. The number of possible metabolites of thalidomide is thus very large, for if any racemic metabolite underwent resolution the possible number of metabolites would be well over 100. In the present paper we describe the isolation and detection of some fifteen urinary metabolites and prove that rabbit urine contains derivatives of 3-and 4-hydroxyphthalic acid.