Streptomycin Looks Better

Streptomycin, the new wonder drug, was in the news again:

P: Last August, the Army & Navy jointly bought 28 oz. (800,000,000 units--enough for about 800 man-days of treatment); in September they tried to get some 160 oz., and hope for double that in October. But they probably will not get it: the four companies making it can turn out only 14 oz. a month.

P: Army doctors are enthusiastic about the drug's performance in fresh tuberculosis cases (before the tubercles have become hardened with calcium), in intestinal and urinary infections, and in typhoid fever cases.

P: Public Health Reports announced last week that streptomycin is much more effective against guinea-pig tuberculosis than promin, one of the least disappointing drugs previously tried (TIME, May 22). The researchers think that by increasing the streptomycin doses it might be possible to eradicate guinea-pig tuberculosis; a few years ago doctors could barely bother the bug in guinea pigs.

Streptomycin and promin given together were much better than either given separately: at the end of the experiment 65% of the infected guinea pigs were cured (compared with 15% of those treated with streptomycin alone and 5% of those treated with promin).

The astonished experimenters, allowing their enthusiasm to leak into print, claimed "results unlike anything we have obtained heretofore in the treatment of experimental tuberculosis."

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