Prontylin for Gonorrhea

Next month Urologist John Archibald Campbell Colston of Johns Hopkins is to tell the convention of the American Medical Association a sensational piece of medical news: that he cures acute gonorrhea in four days with 40-c- worth of Prontylin. Prontylin is a new drug which cures many cases of blood poisoning (TIME, Dec. 28). Learning of Dr. Colston's forthcoming report and keenly aware of the nation's lively interest in the social disease which infects 2,000,000 U. S. men and women a year (twice as many as syphilis does), which is responsible for an inestimaable amount of sterility, which necessitates dropping a 2% solution of silver nitrate in the eyes of every newborn child to insure against blindness, which is responsible for untold "female troubles'' and excisions of wombs. Reporter Edward Patrick Flynn of the New York Post promptly sped to Johns Hopkins.

At Johns Hopkins this alert reporter learned: "Nothing has ever been tried in treating gonorrhea which has given the results this has. Nothing has been discovered which has as much promise."

Artificial fever of 106.7DEG is a newly discovered, specific cure for gonorrhea. But only the sturdiest of individuals can endure this treatment (TIME, April 12). Also, it is relatively expensive, requiring a hot box and constant attendance of a specially trained nurse.

Dr. Colston's gonorrheal patients have simply swallowed one tablet of Prontylin four times a day for four days. That course cured 85% of them. At least, no microscope or test tube revealed any residue of the disease. Why the other 15% did not respond to the drug is a typical medical problem which may take years to solve.

Prontylin is the trade name for a dye which doctors call sulfanilamide. Chemists call it para-aminobenzenesulf onamide. How it kills gonococci is anyone's guess. Best guess is that it stimulates production of white blood corpuscles which in turn destroy the germs.

Dr. Colston's discovery of gonorrhea's simplest treatment is the result of a vast medical centre functioning ideally. Several months ago Johns Hopkins' Dr. Perrin Long heard of London experiments with Prontylin. sped there for first-hand investigation, sped back to Johns Hopkins for experiments on patients suffering from streptococcic septicemia. hurried into print and onto lecture platforms with his reports. Dr. Long and Dr. Eleanor Bliss, who collaborated with him throughout on streptococci, next applied Prontylin to the meningococci which cause spinal menngitis. The meningococcus is a close relative of the gonococcus and Dr. Long, busy with the former, suggested that Dr. Colston, brother-in-law of Johns Hopkins' famed Urologist Hugh Hampton Young, try the drug on his gonorrheal patients. Also quick to action. Dr. Colston summoned young Drs. Henry Clay Harrill and John Essary Dees. They went to work only two months ago, promptly saw enough to warrant announcement of one of Medicine's longest strides this century.

One thing Dr. Colston & associates fear. Anyone can buy Prontylin tablets. Anyone may take an overdose. And an overdose, by overloading the blood with benzene and sulphur, may cause anemia and even death. One thing they cannot promise--that the drug may be used as a prophylaxis against gonorrheal infection. They "simply haven't had the time to investigate that phase."

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