SYPHILIS: A Review of the Recent Literature

PENICILLIN 

Experimental.  —-An organized cooperative study of the effect of penicillin in experimental syphilis of rabbits is under way in several laboratories in this country (Eagle, Mahoney, Chesney, Carpenter, Rake, Fleming). Here are being explored the essential time-dose relationships, the combination of penicillin with other chemotherapeutic agents, the effect of different penicillin fractions and of possible impurities and commercial penicillin and optimum treatment schedules. Except as cited later, however, none of the mentioned investigators has as yet published results, which may be expected to be forthcoming during this next year. Meanwhile, only two very unsatisfactory papers dealing with the general problem of penicillin in early syphilis of rabbits have appeared, those of Selbie and Simon,⁶² working in Great Britain, and Ercoli and Lafferty,⁶³ in this country. Selbie and Simon⁶² have employed penicillin in the treatment of 9 rabbits with testicular chancres. One animal