Before the advent of sulfanilamide and its derivatives into the field of ocular therapy, patients with gonorrheal ophthalmia in St. Luke's Hospital No. 2 were treated by copious and frequent irrigations of the conjunctival sacs, local applications of antiseptics and injection of nonspecific foreign proteins. Of the last-mentioned substances, milk was subjected to the most thorough trial. With its use in the treatment of gonorrheal ophthalmia, formerly cured in from one to two months with local therapy alone, only about two weeks is now required for the eyes to become clinically cured and for conjunctival smears to fail to show gonococci.
A year ago, prompted by the encouraging reports1 appearing in medical literature on the use of sulfanilamide and sulfanilyldimethylsulfanilamide in the treatment of gonorrheal ophthalmia, we began giving sulfanilamide, in addition to the usual local treatment and foreign protein therapy, to our hospitalized patients with gonorrheal ophthalmia. The