IT IS well known that four criteria are of major importance in evaluating antibiotics in ophthalmology; namely, (1) ease of penetration into ocular tissues when the drug is locally or systemically administered; (2) toxicity for ocular tissues; (3) effectiveness against standard experimental ocular infections; (4) effectiveness against clinical ocular infections.
The ease of administration, cost, availability, general tissue toxicity and range of antibiotic activity are also of importance, but these are not solely ophthalmologic problems. Data concerning the four main criteria have been reported for penicillin,1 streptomycin,2 bacitracin3 and aureomycin.4 Recently, an evaluation of the ocular penetration and toxicity of chloramphenicol has been reported.1b It was found that chloramphenicol is stable in solution and penetrates readily into the ocular tissues and fluids after systemic (oral and intravenous) and local administration. These studies with chloramphenicol have been continued with the intent of evaluating its clinical effectiveness.5