Streptothricin

Another drug made by a microscopic organism showed signs of becoming important last week. The Journal of the A.M.A. published an editorial on streptothricin, derived from Actinomyces lavendulae, a mold-like bacterium. Features of Streptothricin: 1) besides attacking many Gram-positive (blue-staining) bacteria, it attacks many of the Gram-negative (red-staining) against which penicillin is almost powerless--germs of typhoid, dysentery, etc.; 2) it is safe in therapeutic doses.

News from Rahway. When the new drug was quietly announced two years ago by Drs. Selman Abraham Waksman and Harold Boyd Woodruff of the New Jersey State Agricultural Experiment Station at Rutgers, only its test-tube performance was known. The present excitement comes from mouse experiments last summer by research workers at the Merck Institute for Therapeutic Research, at Rahway, N.J. (the drug has not yet been tried on people). The evidence:

P: Streptothricin protects mice against 10,000 times the ordinary lethal dose of Salmonella schottmuelleri (paratyphoid fever organism), Escherichia coli (colon bacillus) and Bacterium shigae (cause of Shiga dysentery). The drug's usefulness against typhoid bacteria has not yet been tested in mice, but it is effective against test-tube typhoid.

P: Streptothricin can be given by vein, injection under the skin, or by mouth.

P: Streptothricin can kill a mouse, but many times the therapeutic dose is required to do it.

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