Fleming on Penicillin

Is penicillin a drug or an argument? Doctors have been awed and appalled by a gusher of argumentative books and reports claiming that 1) penicillin will cure almost anything; 2) its victories have been only temporary because the bugs are fighting back. Out this week came still another. This one was authoritative: it was written by penicillin's discoverer, Sir Alexander Fleming, and a group of British colleagues (Penicillin: Its Practical Application; the Blakiston Co.; $7). The book wraps up in one well-documented package just about everything worth knowing about the wonder drug.

Overall conclusions: 1) penicillin is no cureall, but neither is it a flash in the pan; 2) penicillin's occasional failures have been due mainly to improper use.* The Fleming book is also a detailed guide to practitioners on how & when to use the drug. Items:

P: Penicillin should be given as a standard practice, in most surgery; it is particularly useful in certain types of Caesarean operations which present great danger of infection.

P: For special purposes, penicillin can be used successfully, under a doctor's prescription, in lozenges, creams, ointments, nose sprays, snuff.

P: The standard injection treatment is 15,000 to 20,000 units every three hours, day & night, but a general practitioner who finds this schedule impossible can usually get satisfactory results with one or two daily injections. Small doses are useless. The minimum for one or two daily injections: 200,000 to 300,000 units a day.

P: Don't stop too soon: it is better to give penicillin a few days too long than to risk relapse.

*Last week the Journal of the American Medical Association reported reassuringly: 1) commercial penicillin now in use is predominantly of the effective G type instead of the useless K (TIME, May 6); and 2) while new penicillin-resistant varieties of bacteria have been developed in test tubes, they are not yet a problem in practice.

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