Limited Wonder

When Rutgers University's Microbiologist Selman Waksman first described neomycin, an antibiotic produced by soil microbes (TIME, April 4, 1949), it gave promise of being another wonder drug. Then came the blow: when injected over long periods, e.g.) in the treatment of tuberculosis, neomycin damaged the kidneys, sometimes caused lasting deafness. Many researchers gave up on it.

Last week U.S. doctors read in the A.M.A. Journal that neomycin fills one niche most capably: it is just about the best drug so far discovered for treating an infinite variety of skin infections. Three doctors in Cincinnati and five in Galveston used neomycin ointment or compresses on 986 cases ranging from fever blisters, barber's itch and aggravated acne to eczema, impetigo, sties, and inflammation of the outer ear. In three-fourths of their cases the results were good to excellent. Just as important, few of the patients had bad reactions to the antibiotic itself.

The Cincinnati doctors reported an incidental discovery: they gave intramuscular injections to 23 patients suffering from various skin infections, and (while one got worse) none showed any signs of deafness or kidney damage. Their conclusion: neomycin may be safe, even in injections, provided it is not given for more than seven days. Meanwhile, another group of doctors tried neomycin combined with bacitracin on babies. They found that the combination cures infant diarrhea in half the time it takes other drugs.

Neomycin, it turns out, is not one substance but three. One is neither helpful nor harmful; both the others seem to have about the same medical value and must be used with equal care. So used, they go far toward justifying Waksman's high early hopes.

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