Word: sulfa
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Chemotherapy. Doctors used to think that the tough-skinned tubercle bacillus would never succumb to a drug. But promin, diasone, promizole and the brand-new diaminodiphenylsulfone (all sulfa drugs) have showed good results against tuberculosis in guinea pigs, fair promise to human patients (TIME, Dec. 6). Drs. Horton Corwin Hinshaw and William H. Feldman, of the Mayo Clinic, told the Society that tuberculosis will probably succumb to a drug some day but that it is too early to evaluate any drug tried so far. For the sake of Europe, which is suffering a wartime tuberculosis increase, they urged that search...
...Samples of a captured Nazi drug, which is supposed to rival penicillin, were analyzed by British Army doctors, turned out to be marfanil, a sulfa drug. According to the New York Times, marfanil's "curative properties are second only to penicillin" and it is "no more toxic than sulfanilamide." The British Army has already tried...
...them dying), the good news came none too soon. Penicillin (sometimes rhymes with villain, sometimes with whistle in) is the best treatment for all staphylococcic infections, all hemolytic streptococcic infections, clostridia infections, pneumococcic infections (of the lining of skull, spinal cord, lung and heart surfaces), pneumococcic pneumonia that sulfa drugs will not cure, all gonococcic infections (including all gonorrhea that sulfa drugs will not cure). Diseases against which penicillin is effective but not fully tested: syphilis, actinomycosis, bacterial endocarditis...
...hiatus might not have been so long if during that period Germany's Gerhard Domagk had not discovered sulfa drugs (TIME, Dec. 28, 1936), which began to save lives so dramatically that the experts dropped everything else to test them out. In 1933, Dr. Fleming himself lent a hand with M & B 693, also known as sulfapyridine. The sulfas almost seemed to be the dream drugs he had looked for. They stopped deadly streptococci, even cured pneumonia. But the more sulfa drugs were used, the clearer it became that they 1) sometimes delayed healing by irritating wound walls...
Penicillin seems to cure most of the bacterial diseases that the sulfa drugs cure and cures them more quickly, effectively and less dangerously. It also seems to be a quick cure of early syphilis-the first safe and effective drug to kill the spirochete. Sulfa drugs are not effective against syphilis. But penicillin will not entirely supplant sulfa drugs. The sulfa drugs are still necessary for: 1) intestinal infections (penicillin is destroyed in the digestive tract); 2) bacillus coll infections of the urinary tract (penicillin does not attack b. coli); 3) as prophylactics in epidemics of certain diseases like meningitis...