Word: bismuth
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...Alexander of Dallas' Syphilis and Venereal Disease Clinic started looking for a quick way to knock out syphilis while it is still in the incubation stage. They think they have found it. Their "abortive treatment" consists of injection of 900,000 units of penicillin, three cubic centimeters of bismuth ethylcamphorate, 0.05 to 0.06 grams of arsenoxide. The drugs cost only one-tenth of the full penicillin treatment, and the injections take only five minutes. Out of 148 patients who had been in contact with known syphilitics, 127 were under observation for three months; only six developed early syphilis...
...Wells's The World Set Free (1914) is even more prescient. It describes a war in which "most of the capital cities of the world" are destroyed by atomic bismuth bombs, with "millions of people" dead or dying amid complete chaos...
...children's tonsillitis, many U.S. doctors have been prescribing a new drug called Analbis. The drug, a bismuth compound, has an affinity for lymph and attacks the infection in sore throats. In the last three years doctors have used it for hundreds of thousands of patients...
What had gone wrong? One guess: overdosing. Children whose deaths could definitely be attributed to the drug had all received more than the recommended amount (half a suppository each 24 hours). Two of the preparation's ingredients-bismuth and heptadienecarboxylic acid-are dangerous except in very small doses...
...Best drug for early syphilis is still old 606 (arsphenamine), combined with bismuth, though the simpler mapharsen may ultimately replace 606. In comparison, the time-honored mercury is not much good. The first three injections must be given within ten days; the rest once a week for several years. After the first injection a patient becomes temporarily noninfectious. But Dr. Moore warned doctors against the common practice of sporadic injections; once started, treatment must be continued, for in early syphilis a little "may be worse than none." Reason: if no drugs are given, the body proceeds with its strong defenses...