AFTER the original report, in 1943, by Mahoney, Arnold and Harris,1 on the treatment of syphilis with penicillin, it soon became apparent that the necessity of administering penicillin solution at frequent intervals often presented difficult problems in treatment. In 1944 Romansky and Rittman2 described a method of preparing a suspension of penicillin calcium in a mixture of white wax U. S. P. and peanut oil (penicillin injection in oil and wax U. S. P.). Intramuscular administration of this penicillin, peanut oil and white wax suspension at twenty-four hour intervals gave results as satisfactory as those obtained with multiple injections of penicillin in aqueous solution.
From Feb. 7 to Oct. 19, 1946, 160 patients with primary and secondary syphilis, and 15 patients with early latent syphilis, a total series of 175, were treated by us with penicillin injection in oil and wax. All these patients were