Medicine: Better Leprosy Treatment

Last week Medicine generally learned the name of Dr. Richard Wrenshall, professor of chemistry at the University of Hawaii.* In a flat-topped, white building overlooking his university’s experimental farms he has compounded a preparation of chaulmoogra oil which promises to be a better treatment for leprosy than standard chaulmoogra derivatives. Governor Lawrence M. Judd of the Territory of Hawaii heard of Dr. Wrenshall’s work, asked for a report, published it last week.

One of the standard treatments for leprosy has been to inject ethyl-esters of chaulmoogra oil into a muscle with a large bore syringe. This has been painful.

Dr. Wrenshall developed a chaulmoogric acid in combination with an inorganic acid group. This is soluble in water, can be administered with an ordinary hypodermic syringe. More water-soluble than this double acid itself, and so more easily administered, is the sodium salt of this new acid. Tried out on dogs the Wrenshall acid, he reported, proved some six times more therapeutically active than the older ethyl-esters. The Territorial board of health decided to use at once the acid compound on human lepers.

*A well-endowed land grant university established in 1919, including the College of Hawaii (established 1907). President since 1927 has been David Livingston Crawford.