PREVENTION OF GONORRHEA WITH PENICILLIN TABLETS
- HARRY EAGLE, M.D.;
- LIEUTENANT (jg) A. V. GUDE;
- G. E. BECKMANN, M.D.;
- G. MAST, M.D.;
- CAPTAIN J. J. SAPERO;
- J. B. SHINDLEDECKER
- Bethesda, Md.; Medical Corps, United States Naval Reserve; Baltimore; New York; Medical Corps, United States Navy; Hospital Man Chief, United States Navy
- From the National Institutes of Health, United States Public Health Service, Bethesda, Md., and Research Division, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, Navy Department, Washington, D. C.
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
Excerpt
It has been shown in a number of experimental infections1 that the amount of penicillin necessary for cure increases with the number of organisms inoculated. Thus, in white mice infected with pneumococci, the single curative dose of aqueous penicillin G increased in one experiment from 5 to 260 mg. per kilogram of body weight as the inoculum was increased from 15 to 200,000 organisms.1c
Corollary to these observations, it was found that the longer the interval between inoculation and treatment, the more drug was required for cure. Presumably because of the interim multiplication of organisms, effectively bactericidal levels had to be provided for longer and longer aggregate periods in order to kill enough of the bacteria to effect cure. In syphilitic rabbits, the 50 per cent curative dose of penicillin (in oil and wax) 4 hours after intratesticular inoculation with 2,000 organisms was 1,420 units per kilogram of
Footnotes
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Opinions or conclusions contained in this report are those of the authors and are not to be construed as necessarily reflecting the views or the endorsement of the Navy Department.
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Abbott Laboratories, Commercial Solvents Corporation, Lederle Laboratories, Inc., Eli Lilly and Company, Chas. F. Pfizer, Schenley Laboratories and The Upjohn Company supplied the penicillin tablets for this study and Sharpe & Dohme, Inc., the placebo.
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Mr. Jerome Cornfield and Mr. Nathan Mantel of the Office of the Statistical Coordinator, Division of Public Health Methods, assisted in calculating rates and determining the significance of the observed differences.
