Bacteriostatic Action of Sulfanilamide upon Meningococcus in Spinal Fluid

Abstract

It is generally agreed that sulfanilamide and related compounds have a curative effect in natural and experimental infections of man and animals by the hemolytic streptococcus. One of the most interesting features of sulfanilamide as a chemotherapeutic agent is its property to be more or less effective against a wide variety of microörganisms, including the pneumococcus, gonococcus, meningococcus and Cl. Welchii. The mechanism of the action of sulfanilamide in bacterial infections is not fully understood. There can be no doubt, however, that sulfanilamide exerts a certain degree of bacteriostatic activity in vitro, as shown by Bliss and Long 1 Colebrook, Buttle and O'Meara 2 ; Colebrook and Kenny 3 ; Long and Bliss 4 ; Rosenthal, 5 Wengatz, Boak and Carpenter. 6 , ∗ This bacteriostasis may be sufficient to protect leucocytes and to allow the natural defensive macrophages to accumulate (Gay and Clark 7 ). Therefore, phagocytosis may be enhanced under treatment with sulfanilamide. It should be kept in mind, however, that no parallelism exists between the effectiveness of sulfanilamide in vitro and in vivo; Rosenthal 5 could show that sulfanilamide may be more than 100 times as bacteriostatic against pneumococci than against hemolytic streptococci in vitro, although this drug is more effective toward the hemolytic streptococcus in animal experiments.