Medicine: Penicillin Fallout

Though penicillin is the greatest life-saving drug ever discovered, the “fallout” of microscopic penicillin particles in hospitals may be a major factor in the spread of dangerous and sometimes fatal disease. This hypothesis, first proposed by Edinburgh’s Dr. James C. Gould, wins support from a new study just reported by Dr. Jay Sanford, 30, of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas.

Villain of the piece is Staphylococcus aureus, one of the commonest of bacteria, found in the noses and throats of many healthy persons, but often leading to disease (boils, sore throats and even pneumonia) if the victim’s resistance is low. When penicillin first appeared, most strains of ”staph” were a pushover for it, but a few hardy, resistant strains emerged. Now the dominant forms of staph, these are dreaded in hospitals, where they sometimes cause deadly epidemics, especially among the newborn (TIME. March 31 ). The riddle: How does staph get around?

Dr. Sanford and colleagues exposed agar plates around Dallas’ Parkland Memorial Hospital, found that airborne particles of penicillin settled on them in concentrations up to 9.8 units. This fallout was greatest at nursing stations, where penicillin syringes were filled, and in rooms where patients got the injections. The doctors also swabbed out the nostrils of people in the hospital. Of the entire hospital staff, 15% had penicillin particles in their noses, and in some groups the fallout had hit as many as 63%. Among patients. 25% of those receiving penicillin injections had free-floating particles in their noses, and so did 30% of roommates who had had no injections.

Such minute deposits from fallout, Dr. Sanford suggests, may be enough to kill off any sensitive staph in the nostrils and permit (if not actually encourage) their replacement by the dangerous resistant forms. These may cause some sort of serious illness later, when conditions are right for them to multiply, and even if the carriers escape illness themselves, they can easily transmit disease-causing staph to people near by—particularly the newborn.