PENICILLIN’S POWERS

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 July 1945, Page 8

PENICILLIN’S POWERS

REMEDY FOR MENTAL PATIENTS LONDON, July 20. Home-made penicillin, some of _ it produced in jam jars, is now being used in the treatment of all patients in the Rubery Hill mental hospital, near Birmingham, after several others have been discharged cured. This statement was made by Dr. T. C. Graves, superintendent of the hospital, at the annual meeting of the Mental Hospitals’ Association in London, and came as a surprise to delegates. Supporting his claim to have cured the patients with penicillin, Dr. Graves said: “When it first came in, I tried to get some from the Penicillin Supply Committee, but failed. In the end i got 1 some on the quiet from friends. I found there was something in it, even in the treatment of mental disorders. “Seven patients were healed, and five were dicharged cured,” he added. “One was a woman suffering from puerperal sepsis giving rise to mental disorder following childbirth. Penicillin pulled that woman round instantly. “I believe that all mental disorders are caused by germs, and I am working on that belief in using penicillin,” said Dr. Graves. “We give penicillin in intra-muscular injections, clearing up all other causes of sepsis, such as infected teeth and tonsils, first.”