Treatment of Pneumococcic Meningitis With Sulfanilamide and Sulfapyridine

A Survey of Recent Developments in the Treatment of Pneumococcal Meningitis

“…There was, as usual, a tendency to report only good results, and Steele and Gottlieb in 1941 found 115 cases in the literature treated with sulphanilamide or sulphapyridine with a 66 6 % recovery rate.…”

“…Goldstein and Goldstein found 150 recoveries reported in the literature up to 1927, and Steele and Gottlieb (1941) found a further 30 between 1927 and 1939. (Incidentally horse antiserum was introduced in 1930, but was evidently not very effective.) Two large single series with 100% mortality rates were those of Toomey and Roach (1939) from Ohio (159 cases), and of Silverthorne (1948) from Canada (121 cases).…”

“…infants, a feature also noted during the sulphonamide era by Hodes et al (1943), Alexander (1943), and Jaffe (1946). Steele and Gottlieb (1941) remarked that, despite 66 -6 % recoveries in 115 reported cases in the earlier sulphonamide days, all cases under 2 years of age had died. Indeed, recoveries in infants before the use of penicillin were rare, although Jacobsen (1945) reported a baby of 3 months cured with sulphapyridine, and another of 14 months, out of a total of 14 patients.…”