Medicine: Mold for Infections

A marvelous mold that saves lives when sulfa drugs fail was described in the British Lancet last month by Professor Howard Walter Florey and colleagues of Oxford.+ The healing principle, called penicillin, is extracted from the velvety-green Penicillium notatum, a relative of the cheese mold. Although it does not kill germs, the mold stops the growth of streptococci and staphylococci with a power “as great or greater than that of the most powerful antiseptics known.” Once the germs are checked, the body’s white blood cells finish them.

Tried in ten different cases for a variety of infections, the mold produced effective results in nine. The cases:

>A 15-year-old boy with a bad streptococcic infection of the hip showed no improvement after large doses of sulfanilamide and sulfapyridine. Then penicillin was dripped continuously into his veins. After that he received frequent small injections of the mold. In a week he was greatly improved in spite of the small amount of penicillin he had received.

>A man with a huge carbuncle in which staphylococci were found was cured in two weeks.

>A little boy with a terrible staphylococcus infection did not improve under sulfapyridine treatment. Penicillin reduced the infection, brought his temperature down to normal. He later died from a ruptured blood vessel.

>A 14-year-old boy “extremely ill” with staphylococcus poisoning of the leg developeda kidney infection. Sulfathiazole did little good. Penicillin relieved his pain, cleared up the infection in a month.

>A six-month-old baby smitten with a mysterious urinary infection(with convulsions and diarrhea) was not helped by sulfapyridine.Penicillin cured him in three weeks.

> In the other five cases the mold extract, dropped into the eyes, cleared up severe eye infections.

The precise nature of the effective ingredient in penicillin is not known. It is difficult to give by mouth, because it is digested by stomach juices. So far, in cases of blood poisoning, the doctors have dripped as much as 36 oz. a day of very dilute solution into their patients’ veins. Unlike the sulfa drugs, the mold is bland, has no poisonous effects. Said the workers: “An improvement in the spirits and appetite of the patient during treatment was remarked on in all the cases.”

A great drawback is the fact that penicillin is difficult and expensive to extract. Until it can be synthesized, or more cheaply prepared, it will probably be reserved only for desperate cases—for heavily infected wounds, severe staphylococcic diseases, possibly gas gangrene. It cannot yet be obtained in the U.S.

+Pathologists E. P. Abraham, E. Chain, C. M. Fletcher, A. D. Gardner, N. G. Heatley, M. A. Jennings.