One-Day Cures for V.D.

Biggest medical news for many a day was the report last week of one-day cures for both gonorrhea and syphilis. In the case of syphilis, doctors are still doubtful. The gonorrhea cure was much more certain.

Gonorrhea. Some 80% acute (i.e., new) gonorrheal infections can be cleaned up by a single massive intravenous dose of sulfathiazole, reports the Military Surgeon. All the symptoms do not vanish at once, but no further treatment is needed, and the soldier-patient can return to duty the day after medication.

Syphilis. The one-day syphilis cure--again for new infections only--combines: 1) single massive doses of mapharsen (an organic arsenic compound); 2) a ten-hour fever (106DEG F.) artificially induced by hot humid air while the patient lies in a coffinlike cabinet developed in part by General Motors Research Director Charles Kettering. By increasing the body's tolerance for arsenic, the fever enables doctors to compress the recently developed five-to ten-day treatment (without fever) into one day.

In the current Reader's Digest Paul de Kruif (Microbe Hunters) presents the one-day syphilis cure as an accomplished fact, writes glibly of "immediate expansion of this chemothermic treatment." But the American Medical Association last week warned doctors and the public that the new technique was not yet beyond the experimental stage.

Prophylaxis advanced on two points:

> Throughout New York City the Army & Navy are about to set up 24-hour-a-day prophylactic stations in firehouses, police stations and health centers. Soldiers and sailors must report to these stations immediately after exposure.

> In Sacramento, a prophylactic station for civilians as well as soldiers has been established. Heretofore efforts to open stations in other cities have failed because the civilian, unlike the soldier, cannot be forced to report for treatment. (Commented one doctor: "Imagine the meeting of two persons at a prophylactic station after an affectionate parting an hour before!") But in four months (August-December 1941) 2,062 male civilians (with a like number of soldiers from nearby Mather Field) reported for treatment in Sacramento.

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