COMBINED STREPTOMYCIN AND SULFADIAZINE TREATMENT IN BRUCELLOSIS

Abstract

In the past decade, many diseases of bacterial origin have yielded dramatically to the newer chemotherapeutic and antibiotic agents. Brucellosis has not been one of them. Of the scores of remedies that have been offered for this disease with more or less enthusiasm, none have proved satisfactory under critical evaluation and most of them have been discarded. In the early days of the sulfonamide compounds and of streptomycin, enthusiasm for their efficacy in brucellosis ran high, but further experience has demonstrated that their therapeutic value is minimal. 1 Both sulfadiazine and streptomycin suppress Brucella in vitro. Although neither drug by itself is distinctly effective clinically, there is evidence that even in vivo each has some suppressive action on Brucella. These considerations led us to evaluate the effect of the simultaneous use of these drugs in a case of human brucellosis. REPORT OF A CASE A Transylvania-born white man, aged 52