Penicillin Front

Penicillin was still winning more battles than it lost. Despite setbacks because of clumsy handling of the drug (e.g., use of ineffective strains and weak doses which allow resistant bacteria to develop--TIME, July 15), doctors last week had some notable victories to report:

For Operations. Penicillin is customarily used to fight infection after it develops. But British Surgeon R. Wood Power gave stiff doses of it, to prevent infection, to some 250 patients on whom he performed major operations. Result: few infections, no fatal blood clots, rapid recovery (after appendectomies, patients were up & about on the second day).

For Diphtheria. In Gateshead, England, which has had severe diphtheria epidemics (2,911 cases, 147 deaths) during the past ten years, Dr. Richard J. Dodds tried heavy doses of penicillin (besides diphtheria antitoxin) on a test group of 13 hard-hit patients. One died, but the rest recovered more rapidly and with fewer complications than patients who got only antitoxin.

For the Teeth. At London's St. Mary's Hospital, a group of dentists and a distinguished colleague, Penicillin Discoverer Sir Alexander Fleming, tried penicillin lozenges for mouth infections. In a number of cases, reported Dentist E. Wilfred Fish in the Journal of the American Dental Association, abscessed teeth and gums cleared up nicely; penicillin also was helpful in an operation in which two infected teeth were extracted and replanted in the same sockets.

For Sinus. A penicillin aerosol (spray) which, when inhaled, gives excellent results against inflammation of the sinuses, bronchitis, bronchial asthma and lung abscesses was described in the New York Journal of Medicine by famed asthma specialist Alvan L. Barach, of Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons.

For the Heart. One of the most deadly of all human infections is bacterial endocarditis (bacterial inflammation of a heart membrane). Against it, penicillin at first failed. Now heart specialists have found an answer: bigger doses of penicillin than previously tried. In a bulletin of the American Heart Association, Dr. Thomas H. Hunter of Manhattan's Presbyterian Hospital announced that with massive penicillin doses (up to 20,000,000 units a day) it is possible to cure the subacute form of the disease "in almost every patient."

For Anthrax. Primarily a disease of cattle and sheep, anthrax also attacks man, producing an infectious, often fatal, skin ailment. The only known protection: immunization by vaccine. Last fortnight, in the Journal of the American Medical Association, four Army & Navy researchers announced that penicillin had cured 25 cases of anthrax in human beings.

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