Medicine Looks Ahead 243 



lowed up immediately, but in 1940 and 1941 a group of medi- 

 cal students at Oxford conducted careful experiments with 

 the drug. 



One of these men, Dr. H. W. Florey, visited the United 

 States in 1941 and interested Drs. R. D. Coghill and A. J. 

 Meyer of the United States Department of Agriculture in 

 launching experiments in the culture and purification of peni- 

 cillin. This work, at the Agriculture Department's laboratory 

 in Peoria, Illinois, proved invaluable in developing produc- 

 tion. A number of commercial drug houses Merck & Co., 

 E. R. Squibb & Sons, Charles Pfizer & Co., and Lederle Labo- 

 ratories began manufacturing penicillin in 1943. 



Penicillin is perhaps the most powerful bacteria-killing 

 agent known to man. It can destroy disease-producing germs 

 even when dissolved in 100,000,000 parts of water. Aside 

 from being more powerful than the sulfa drugs, penicillin has 

 given no toxic reactions even from the largest dosage. More 

 important, penicillin has been found highly effective against 

 the pus-causing bacteria (staphylococcus aureus) responsible 

 for pimples and boils, and also against such serious infections 

 as acute and chronic osteomyelitis, or bone infections; cellu- 

 litis, or inflammation of connective tissue; carbuncles of the 

 lip and face; empyema of the chest pus in the chest and a 

 type of pneumonia caused by this germ. On the other hand, 

 the sulfa drugs have proved of only limited value against 

 staphylococcus infections. In several cases penicillin quickly 

 cleared up such infections after the sulfa drugs had failed and 

 a fatal outcome seemed probable. 



The first military tests of penicillin began in the summer of 

 1943 at the Bushnell General Hospital, Brigham City, Utah, 

 by order of Major General James C. Magee, Surgeon General 

 of the Army. The Committee on Medical Research of the 

 Office of Scientific Research and Development reported in the 

 Journal of the A.M. A. that results of the Army tests were "so 

 encouraging that plans are now in process for undertaking 



