Medicine: Quick Cure

Not so long ago, “the clap” used to be considered “no worse than a bad cold.” Thanks to this cavalier attitude, many a child has become blind, many a woman made sterile, many an,oldster made insane. Syphilis killed its thousands, but gonorrhea crippled its tens of thousands.

Ever since penicillin’s potency against the gonococcus was discovered, health experts have hoped it would eventually provide a quick treatment that a doctor could give in his office. Hitherto gonorrhea patients have had to be hospitalized (expensive) or treated repeatedly (difficult because many are too irresponsible to keep appointments).

Using penicillin dissolved in water, treatment was gradually worked down to three hypodermic injections two hours apart. Then came the discovery, announced last year (TIME, Sept. 11), that penicillin mixed with beeswax and peanut oil is disseminated slowly through the body, keeping the penicillin content of blood high for hours. The Public Health Service acted swiftly. To 137 doctors throughout the land went instructions and the penicillin mixture with the request that they try single injections of 200,000 units (2 cc.) on as many patients as possible and report the results. Back came results on 1,060 cases: over 91% apparently cured, regardless of sex, color or stage of the disease. Many of the failures were cured by a second injection. The rest were re-treated—and nearly all cured—by slower penicillin methods.*

* Penicillin is also effective against syphilis (TIME, Oct. 25, 1943). Standard treatment with arsenic compounds used to take months or years. Penicillin treatment is a matter of weeks.