Sulfa Chew

You can now chew your sore throat away. For septic sore throat, tonsillitis, mouth infections and throat abscesses, White Laboratories have developed a greenish, minty chewing gum, containing 3 3/4 grains of sulfathiazole in each "tablet." According to last week's Apothecary, a patient who chews the gum for 30 minutes to an hour gets a high concentration of the drug in his saliva (70 milligrams per 100 cc. of saliva; the concentration used in the blood in acute pneumonia is only five to ten milligrams per 100 cc.). Although the concentration is high in the saliva, very little gets into the blood stream and "there is but slight possibility of any systematic toxicity"--i.e., the sulfa in the gum will probably do no harm. Drugstores will have the new gum around Dec. 1, will sell it only on prescription--sulfa drugs are too tricky for indiscriminate use (TIME, June 14).

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