War Booty

When two U.S. doctors went to Germany last summer to check on reports that a new chemical was showing promise in treating tuberculosis, they got an eye-opener. The drug had passed the promising stage, had shown impressive results over a two-year period in the treatment of 7,000 patients. And behind its discovery and development was the potent name of Professor Gerhard Domagk, 54, who won fame--and a 1939 Nobel Prize, which the Nazis would not let him take--as top man in perfecting the sulfa drugs.

The drug was Tibione.-The U.S. investigators were Dr. H. Corwin Hinshaw of Stanford University, and Dr. Walsh

McDermott of New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. Reporting on their findings at a Veterans Administration conference in Atlanta last week, Dr. Hinshaw explained that Tibione belongs to a group of chemicals (the thiosemicarbazones) which are new to medicine. It is unrelated to the antibiotic streptomycin -- or to para-amino-salicylic acid (P.A.S.), the only other chemical previously known to be effective against tuberculosis.

Professor Domagk had found that the thiosemicarbazones were active against the tubercle bacillus and against no other germs (hence the name Tibione, derived from T.B. One). Because streptomycin and P.A.S. were hard to get in dollar-short Europe, German doctors used cheap-to-make Tibione lavishly on all kinds of tuberculosis sufferers.

Tibione proved to be no cureall, but the results summarized by Dr. Hinshaw suggest that it will be a valuable adjunct to streptomycin. It is no good against miliary (generalized) or meningeal tuberculosis, where streptomycin is most effective. It is "most impressive" in tuberculous laryngitis and enteritis. While its usefulness against pulmonary tuberculosis is not yet clear, it will probably be given along with streptomycin; doctors hope that Tibione, like P.A.S., will help prevent the growth of tubercle strains which learn to resist streptomycin.

Tibione is more toxic than streptomycin or P.A.S., but most patients suffer only loss of appetite, malaise, and skin eruptions which look like measles. These side effects soon pass, and Tibione (unlike streptomycin) can be given to a patient for months or even years. It is taken in tablet form, usually four times a day. Because the drug was developed during the war, the German patents are no good and any U.S. manufacturer can make it. A few patients in U.S. hospitals have been dosed with Tibione; it will soon be tried on thousands.

-Schenley Laboratories' trade name for 4-acetyl-aminobenzaldehyde-thiosemicarbazone.

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