246 Miracles Ahead! 



it in the blood stream. Tests on animals proved this was the 

 case, and gramicidin also has been used effectively on sinus 

 infections, infections of the bladder, infected but not bleed- 

 ing wounds, ulcers, and empyema from pneumonia. Drs. 

 Charles H. Remmelkamp and Chester S. Keefer of the Massa- 

 chusetts Memorial Hospital, Boston, reported that sinus infec- 

 tions were cleared up within forty-eight hours. Severe blad- 

 der infections that the sulfa drugs did not affect were cured 

 within one week. 



Streptothricin Another Microbe Killer 



Working under the old adage that "the smallest bugs have 

 smaller bugs which live upon and bite them," Dr. Selman A. 

 Waksman, of Rutgers University, and Dr. H. Boyd Wood- 

 ruff, of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, have 

 found other germ-killing substances in a fungus which grows 

 rampant in the soil. They reported that one of these sub- 

 stances, Streptothricin, is so potent that a solution of one part 

 in one million would kill millions of the deadly streptococcus 

 germs. Nine or more of these germ killers have been isolated 

 and work is proceeding on them. 



The chief difficulty in using them to fight disease has been 

 their extreme toxicity both to the germs and to animals. But 

 Streptothricin, closely related to gramicidin, is far less toxic 

 and is said to show very promising results for possible human 

 treatment. 



Quinine Substitutes 



When Japanese forces swept through the Far East they got 

 control of 95 per cent of the world's quinine supply needed 

 to combat deadly malaria. But American chemists were able 



