Word: sulfa
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...Buttle of the Royal Army Medical Corps used proflavine, now the most popular acridine, on 80 serious wounds in North Africa, reported in the Lancet that "proflavine has proved more effective in controlling or eliminating the infection than any other drug. . . so far tried." (They had already tried sulfa drugs...
When a soldier is wounded he takes, or is given, the eight sulfathiazole tablets which all men carry. Said a wounded major: "I don't know how much good the stuff does, but it is the greatest morale builder in the world. After my men took their sulfa they brightened up immediately. That's how much confidence they have...
...sulfa drugs are wonderful-and dangerous unless properly used. It was clear last week that this simple fact, unrealized by a large part of the public, was also unrealized by many members of the medical profession. Sulfa experts were worried about the common use of the drugs where the use was not specifically indicated. They were worried by the tendency of some physicians to prescribe sulfa without subsequently keeping a close eye on the patient...
Toxic reactions from the drugs are frequent-a survey of sulfas taken internally shows that some toxic reaction occurred in 29.8% of sulfapyridine cases, 11.8% of sulfathiazole and 7.7% of sulfadiazine. Most of these reactions are not dangerous, merely a nuisance (e.g., nausea, vomiting, dizziness, mild anemia, lack of appetite, tingling sensation), and do not interrupt treatment. But some rare reactions may prove fatal unless caught early. Even the less toxic sulfa derivatives can cause trouble: three cases at Johns Hopkins Hospital suffered not only kidney damage but brain injury from sulfathiazole; two majors in the Army Medical Corps last...
...Sulfa deaths are very rare compared with the lives saved and considering the estimated ten or 15 million U.S. cases treated with sulfa drugs in a year. The great weight on sulfa's credit side can be gauged by New York City's mortality records: if the pre-sulfa mortality rate had prevailed, 10,341 New Yorkers would have died from 1936 to 1941, of 14 diseases now treated with sulfa drugs. Actually only 4,475 died. For every 685 pneumonia deaths there was only one fatal sulfa reaction-a risk doctors and citizens agree is well worth...