IMPORTANT DRUG DISCOVERY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23686, 19 December 1938, Page 13

IMPORTANT DRUG DISCOVERY

ARRESTING DISEASE BACTERIA SULPHONAMIDE GROUP (From Our Own Correspondent) (By Air Mail) LONDON, Nov. 11. Medicine, as a whole, is rightly cautious in acclaiming any new discovery as an advance, let alone a major advance, pending confirmation by many observers, under proper conditions of control, and in a sufficiently large series of cases. There seems to be no doubt, however, that in what is known as the sulphonamide group of drugs we are in the presence of a really important discovery. Chemically, the whole group has an aniline basis, with a sulphonamide addition, with different modifications and additions resulting from the research of both German and British chemists. The prontosils .as they were named, were the first of these drugs to become generally known, and were sponsored in Germany. The sulphanilimides, of the same basic group, have since been largely used, as well as the English product known as T 693. or M and B 693. All these drugs have-an extremely powerful action in arresting the growth within the human body, of certain disease-producing bacteria, particularly various forms of streptococci and some forms of pneumococci. This arresting process, which is sometimes dramatic, enables the natural resisting forces of the body, to overcome the bacterial infection, and, indeed, many observers believe that the sulphonamide group is most effective when used in combination with appropriate vaccines. PYORRHCEA SUCCESS

The potency of the group first became manifest in this country in the treatment, at Queen Charlotte's Hospital, of cases of puerperal or childbirth fever As Dr Eardley Holland reported at a recent meeting of the Medical Society of London, the case mortality rate at this hospital had dropped, since the use of these compounds, from 25 per cent, to below 5 per cent.; and he was able to report an even more striking fall in the deaths from peritonitis and septicaemia

In a general review of 1500 cases treated with these compounds, recently published in the British Medical Journal, by Mr A. J ; Cokkinis, equally satisfactory results are recorded in certain types of pyorrhoea, in some of the severer forms of tonsilitis, and in the treatment of inflammatory conditions of the middle ear- and mastoid.

Not long ago an equally impressive series of cases of a very dangerous and often fatal type of pneumonia was published, in which the value of M and B 693 as an adjunct of treatment was clearly demonstrated; and promising results have already been obtained in conditions due to various other types of bacteria. With such powerful agents there are, of course, attendant dangers. Not only should the exact type of the bacteria be known in advance, but a watch should be kept, both before and during treatment, upon the patient's blood, particularly in respect of the white corpuscles. In other words, the sulphonamlde group must be used with care.