Word: aureomycin
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...Aureomycin attacks some virus-like organisms, and some common colds are caused by a virus. So, in a rigidly controlled test, the medical staff of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point tried the golden antibiotic on 154 cadets with colds. At the same time, they gave harmless yellow capsules to 155 other grey-uniformed snifflers. In the New England Journal of Medicine the medics had to admit defeat: aureomycin is just one more thing that doesn't cure a cold...
Chatting with Novelist Edna Ferber, Alice Longworth, daughter of Theodore Roosevelt, recalled a recent illness in an isolated western cabin: "There was a foot and a half of snow outside, and my temperature was 103. Of course, I had my own aureomycin with me, but I thought, 'Wouldn't it be strange if I died here in this log cabin?' " Quipped Author Ferber, "Just think what the headline writers would have done with the story. I can see it now, 'From White House to Log Cabin...
Finally, there were the technical improvements in antibiotics and transfusions. Penicillin, scarce and little understood in World War II, was available in Korea in carload lots, in suspensions which would stay in the system for many life-saving hours. Also on hand were aureomycin, Chloromycetin and Terramycin, often effective where penicillin fails. There was also whole blood, which the Army doctors used more & more in preference to plasma. The shipping and preservation were so efficient (it must be used within 21 days) that Dr. Meiling reported proudly : "Not one unit was lost during September by being outdated...
...Army Medical Department reported that aureomycin might be an answer to the dreaded aftermath of atomic blasts-radiation sickness. Dogs were exposed to deadly doses of radiation all over the body. Untreated, 80% died; of those treated with aureomycin within an hour after exposure, 80% lived...
...Lederle scientists were working on vitamin B-12 (another growth promoter), one of whose sources is the fermentation product from which aureomycin is separated. To their astonishment, they found that this material had more effect on the growth of chicks than pure vitamin B-12 itself. When they investigated, they found that the small trace of aureomycin in the mixture was responsible. It worked with turkeys. It also worked with hogs, speeding their growth into marketable chops and bacon by as much...