The Ypsilanti Daily Press

Laymen Should Not Treat Selves With Sulfa Drugs

By Logan Clendening, M. D.

FOR ABOUT five years now the medical profession has been in a dither of excitement about the new sulfa drugs which act so remarkably in such infections as pneumonia, meningitis, urinary infections, etc. One of the most widely experienced practicing physicians said to me the other day: "Nobody dies any more of pneumonia."

And this is almost literally true.

The enthusiasm of the medical profession has communicated itself to the lay public and, as usual with such emotional epidemics, they have gone far beyond the limits that the medical profession prescribed for the use of these remedies and are using them for self-medication for nearly everything.

In some instances, as for ordinary colds and sore throats and running noses, they do more harm than good. In the first place, it is definitely established that although they kill a great many infections, the sulfa drugs do not kill off the virus of the common cold or influence its course.

Not Useful for Colds

People who take large doses of this for a cold not only do themselves no good, but they really prolong a period of discomfort because heavy doses of the drugs are likely to lead to skin rashes, mental and physical depression and other disagreeable symptoms.

A popular treatise on the subject is Behind the Sulfa Drugs: A Short History of Chemotherapy, by Iago Galdston, M.D., with a preface by Perrin H. Long, M.D. (D. Appleton-Century Company, New York, 1943.)

In 1908 a German scientist named P. Gelmo was working with a chemical dye, sulfanilamide. He found that it was extremely color-fast, resisted the bleaching effects of washing and sunlight. The color-fastness arose from the firm combination which the dyes containing the sulfonamide element formed with the proteins of wool and silk.

He was interested only on the chemical and industrial aspects of the subject, but some of his fellow workers suggested that it might be useful in the treatment of disease.

Later Developments

The new era in this development began in 1932 when Gerhard Domagk, Director of the Institute of Experimental Pathology in the I. G. Farbenindustrie at Eberfeld, Germany, using a dye similar to sulfanilamide, which was named prontosil, found that it would protect mice against otherwise fatal doses of pus germs (streptococci).

He found also that prontosil was harmless to the mice.

French chemists took the dye, prontosil, which is a colloid (colloid is like the white of egg) and developed a crystalline substance from it, to which they gave the name sulfanilamide. About 1936 this drug was made available for use in clinics all over the world.

It was soon found that the most exaggerated statements of the discoverers were far short of the really powerful curative action of these substances in human beings in the presence of otherwise fatal infections.

Following is a list of diseases, not completely inclusive, in which the sulfonamides are proving invaluable and frequently life-saving: actinomycosis; blood infections with the hemolytic streptococci, staphylococci, pneumococci, meningococci and influenza bacillus; carbuncles; chancroid; childbed fever; erysipelas; furuncles; gonorrheal arthritis; gonorrheal infection of the male and of the female genital tract; infectious arthritis; infections of the urinary tract; mastoid infections; meningitis; middle-ear infections; osteomyelitis; peritonitis; pneumonia; scarlet fever; skin infections; streptococcic throat infections; and trachoma.

Dr. Clendening will answer questions of general interest only, and then only through his column.