Abstract
It was recognized early that in lymphogranuloma venereum, unlike most other virus diseases, some success attended treatment of infected mice or guinea pigs with drugs of the sulfonamide group. The earlier work has been summarized by Findlay. 1 In a previous communication from this laboratory 2 it was indicated that, in preliminary experiments, sulfapyridine and sulfathiazole given orally in the form of the free acid twice daily after infection were equally effective in preventing death of mice infected intracerebrally. In these experiments mouse brain was used as inoculum, and even with a 1 in 10 suspension only 63% of the control mice died. In subsequent papers Findlay 1 , 3 repeated his earlier results with sulfanilamide, showing a reduction of mortality from 84% in the controls to 49% in those fed sulfanilamide in gum acacia daily. 3 He further attempted to assess the relative value of sulfanilamide, sulfapyridine, sulfathiazole, sulfamethylthiazole and disodium 4:4 bis-o-carboxybenzoylaminodiphenylsulfone. 1 The mice received 10 mg per 20 g of body weight in 2 equal daily doses orally by stomach tube for the first 4 compounds and subcutaneously for the last. One hundred mice were treated with each compound, together with 100 controls, and the ratio of treated survivors to control survivors was used as a method of comparing one experiment with another. On the basis of his results, Findlay maintained that the order of activity ran: sulfamethylthiazole > sulfapyridine > sulfathiazole > sulfanilamide > lutazol. Smaller experiments with compounds inoculated intramuscularly in olive oil indicated slight activity for ammonium 4-nitrobenzene-sulfonate and 4:4-dinitrodiphenylsulfone.
All of the previous work had been carried out with virus material of low titer derived from infected mouse or monkey brain.
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