Medicine: Plentiful Penicillin?

Civilian physicians may soon have all the penicillin they need for venereal disease patients. Last week an informed prediction was that there would be enough for unrestricted civilian use in about six months—sooner if the Nazis are quickly defeated.

Doctors have already discovered many minor troubles in which penicillin can be useful. Among them:

Boils. Drs. Rose Coleman and Wallace Saburo Sako of New Orleans say penicillin is the best thing they ever tried for attacks of multiple boils in children.

Sinus Infections. Many people with chronic sinus ailments have had penicillin injections, lost their headaches.

Eye Infections. Some of the first infections against which Oxford’s Drs. Mary Ethel Florey and Howard Walter Florey tried penicillin before introducing it as a drug (TIME, May 15) were conjunctivitis, infected eyelids, infected tear sacs. They used a penicillin salve, cleared up cases which had lasted for years.

Ear Infections. Local, treatment with penicillin solutions can cure abscesses in the ear’s outer canal. Penicillin injections have even saved the necessity of mastoid operations.