Drug Notes

Drug Notes

Drugs new & old in the limelight last week:

> Sulfamerazine hit the market last fortnight. Its champions claim: 1) sulfamerazine is just as effective as sulfadiazine for pneumonia; 2) it is more powerful, dose for dose, than sulfadiazine and therefore more economical; 3) it is more rapidly absorbed and longer retained than sulfadiazine.

> Professor Harry Warren Anderson of the University of Illinois's horticulture department has made a new drug, clavacin, from mold. He thinks it "may be more useful" than penicillin because, in test tubes, "it kills all bacteria killed by penicillin" and more besides. He has cured some plant diseases with clavacin but has yet to make tests on animals.

> Thiouracil is a white powder with a bitter taste which two groups of Boston doctors are using successfully to relieve the fast heart rate, shortness of breath, nervousness and shakiness of patients with overactive thyroid glands. The doctors think the drug acts by preventing the gland from making too much hormone.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.