Hardier Germs

Just when the sulfa drugs, penicillin and the other antibiotics seemed to be sweeping most of the bacterial diseases before them, a dark thunderhead of rumor appeared on the horizon--the germs were rallying and fighting back. All over the U.S., bacteriologists studied the phenomenon, and by last week the rumors were well confirmed. Within a few years, ventured Dr. Hans Molitor, penicillin and streptomycin may lose much of their power to cure some of the most prevalent diseases. No alarmist, Dr. Molitor should know what he is talking about: as director of the Merck Institute, he was a pioneer in the development of antibiotics.

Bacteria multiply so fast that they can pack into a few hours or days the equivalent of thousands of generations of the higher forms of life. As the walrus has adapted itself to the Arctic and the cactus to the desert, the bacteria seem to adapt themselves quickly when exposed to the initially hostile environment created by the new drugs. In the last few months, bacteriologists have bred strains of pneumococci, streptococci and other common germs which are practically immune to the sulfa drugs, penicillin, etc.

Two Jumps Ahead. In clinical experience, too, doctors have been meeting drug-resistant infections which they attribute to new mutations among the bacteria. Gonorrheal infections now often do not respond as readily to the sulfa drugs as they did a few years ago. Penicillin is still effective against the disease; but the British Medical Journal, reviewing recent research, warns "against the idea that penicillin will necessarily continue indefinitely to cure nearly every case. . . ."

A respiratory disease which hit the Navy and the Army Air Forces in 1944 failed to respond to the sulfa drugs which had previously been effective against similar infections. Last week a group of Stanford bacteriologists traced the epidemic to a sturdy strain of streptococci which had "become more resistant by mutation."

The inexperience of doctors with the antibiotics has been partly to blame for their declining efficacy. For example, doctors have often prescribed inadequate doses which give germs a chance to develop resistance.

Though bacterial "drug-fastness" is a serious problem for medical researchers, Dr. Molitor believes there is yet no cause for public anxiety. Bacteria do not always keep up their resistance. Some bacteria, as they become drug-resistant, also become less virulent; and new antibiotics are being discovered all the time. The adaptable researchers hope to keep two jumps ahead of the jump-ahead germs.

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