Word: penicillins
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...wonder drug of 1943 may prove to be penicillin, obscured since its discovery in Britain in 1929, only now getting its thorough sickroom trial. It is made from a mold (TIME, Sept. 15, 1941) by a slow, laborious process. All the penicillin in the U.S. at any one time has never been more than about enough to treat 30 cases...
Experiments have already shown that penicillin attacks certain bacteria more successfully than sulfa drugs do. Unlike sulfa drugs, penicillin's effects are not inhibited by pus and other materials formed in infected wounds. Used in low concentrations in the blood stream, penicillin's action is bacteriostatic, i.e., it prevents bacteria from multiplying and renders them easy prey for white blood corpuscles. Penicillin solutions strong enough to kill bacteria may safely be injected under the skin near a wound or used as a dressing...
...month-old baby smitten with a mysterious urinary infection (with convulsions and diarrhea) was not helped by sulfapyridine. Penicillin cured him in three weeks...
...precise nature of the effective ingredient in penicillin is not known. It is difficult to give by mouth, because it is digested by stomach juices. So far, in cases of blood poisoning, the doctors have dripped as much as 36 oz. a day of very dilute solution into their patients' veins. Unlike the sulfa drugs, the mold is bland, has no poisonous effects. Said the workers: "An improvement in the spirits and appetite of the patient during treatment was remarked on in all the cases...
...great drawback is the fact that penicillin is difficult and expensive to extract. Until it can be synthesized, or more cheaply prepared, it will probably be reserved only for desperate cases-for heavily infected wounds, severe staphylococcic diseases, possibly gas gangrene. It cannot yet be obtained...