Medicine Looks Ahead 245 



"When the structure of penicillin becomes known," de- 

 clares Arthur D. Little, Inc., Chemists-Engineers, "research 

 on its production and use will undoubtedly proceed much 

 more rapidly and perhaps compounds will be found which 

 are structurally similar and equally active but easier to use. 

 It is indeed possible that a whole new class of chemothera- 

 peutic materials similar to penicillin will be opened up and 

 that penicillin will be overshadowed as sulfanilamide has been 

 by some of its derivatives." 



Already a second and more potent germ-killing drug has 

 been discovered in the mold penicillium notatum. The new 

 derivative, called penatin, was reported by Dr. Walter 

 Kochalaty of the University of Pennsylvania. Penatin is more 

 powerful than penicillin, but also is active against disease 

 germs which are hardly affected by penicillin. Not one of 

 fifty disease-causing and nondisease-causing organisms could 

 resist penatin in dilutions of one to ten million parts and some- 

 times in dilutions of one to four hundred million. 



Gramicidin New Microbe Killer 



In 1940 Dr. Rene J. Dubos announced that he had ex- 

 tracted from a special strain of soil bacteria a chemical sub- 

 stance he named gramicidin, which had proved the most 

 powerful microbe killer until then known to man. Gramicidin 

 was found, however, to be highly toxic to animals as well as 

 to bacteria, and it had to take a back seat while penicillin 

 exhibited its miraculous germ-killing powers. Meanwhile Dr. 

 Wallace E. Herrell and Dr. Dorothy Heilman of the Mayo 

 Clinic sought to determine how gramicidin produced its toxic 

 effects on animals. They found that along with its powerful 

 germicidal action it also had the power to break down red 

 blood cells by the process known as hemolysis. 



It was concluded, therefore, that the chemical could be used 

 safely in local applications where it was not necessary to put 



