NEOMYCIN LOTION IN TREATMENT OF CUTANEOUS BACTERIAL INFECTIONS

Abstract

DURING the time that has elapsed since Waksman¹ and his co-workers discovered neomycin, it has become one of the accepted antibiotics for the treatment of cutaneous bacterial infections. Numerous investigators² have reported that this antibiotic is a very valuable therapeutic agent for the topical treatment of bacterial infections of the skin when applied either as an ointment or in aqueous solution. The work of Livingood³ and his co-workers indicates that it is particularly effective for staphylococcic infections and that its spectrum includes a fair percentage of most of the bacteria which are of importance in the etiology of cutaneous bacterial infections. Perhaps it is appropriate to state that there is no one antibiotic⁴ for topical treatment of skin infections that is distinctly superior to all others. For example, it is generally agreed that both oxytetracycline (Terramycin) and chlortetracycline (aureomycin) are superior to neomycin in