TREATMENT OF TUBERCULOSIS WITH STREPTOMYCIN

Abstract

The search for drugs effective in treatment of tuberculosis has long been under way, but significant progress toward a practical goal was not achieved until the modern era of chemotherapy reawakened interest in the subject. For more than sixty years it has been known that Mycobacterium tuberculosis was readily inhibited when growing in cultures, and a large number of substances have been found which have the property of inhibiting the growth of this organism, even in extremely high dilutions.¹ Until 1940² a substance was not found which was capable of actually arresting experimental tuberculosis in the highly susceptible guinea pig. The development of methods³ which were adequate to assay the therapeutic potentialities of antibacterial drugs against experimental tuberculosis has made possible an extensive program of research which has steadily progressed toward attainment of a practical clinical goal. These methods led to the recognition of the sulfone series