Medicine: TB Drugs

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Researchers looked hard and long for a drug to cure tuberculosis. When it appeared hopeless to get rid of the germs without hurting the patient, interest in the search slowed up. Then the discovery of sulfanilamide dramatized the fact that chemicals can fight bacteria safely—not by killing them, but by hampering their vital processes. The search for a tuberculosis cure was revivified. No one has the answer yet, but new clues are turned up every week. Recent ones:

¶ Subtilin, an extract of the bacillus sub-tilis (the hay bacillus found in every open field) will kill tubercle bacilli in test tubes. This announcement, by the University of California's Dr. Anthony J. Salle, may mean very little. Test-tube results are only a preliminary step and subtilin has a long way to go to prove itself; like many another potential "cure," it may be no good in the human body.

¶ Streptomycin, the new wonder drug made from a soil organism (TIME, Jan. 29), has at last had a try out on people, reported the Mayo Clinic's Drs. H. C. Hinshaw and W. H. Feldman. The group of experts, who conducted an experiment on 34 people, found that, against tuberculosis, streptomycin is nothing to shout about yet. Streptomycin did its best work on such odd kinds of tuberculosis as urinary, skin and miliary (nodules widely spread through the body). In streptomycin's favor: it is not dangerous to use. and experiments are continuing.

What worries the experts most is the layman's tendency to pin hope on every test-tube success. But doctors continue to write up their results and risk the dangers of publicity because any test may give the clue some other worker needs.