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JAMA. 1968;203(13):1132.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Resistance to one or more antibiotics among members of a bacterial genus which has been previously responsive is on the increase. A source of therapeutic frustrations as well as a major public health problem, bacterial resistance presents various patterns and mechanisms, some understood, others totally unknown.

Longest known and best understood is penicillinase-mediated resistance to penicillin G (benzylpenicillin) by strains of Staphylococcus aureus. So effectively did penicillinase inactivate the drug that, for a considerable time, hospital-based, penicillinresistant staphylococcal infection seriously threatened health and life. Less susceptible to hydrolytic action of the enzyme, sodium methicillin (1959) reduced this danger, but did not altogether eliminate it. Disturbing report^s tell of staphylococcal resistance to methicillin effected by some unknown innate factor.

Similarly obscure are the mechanisms of staphylococcal resistance to antibiotics other than penicillin. From one third to two thirds of staphylococcal strains isolated from clinical sources are resistant to streptomycin, tetracycline, . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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