Abstract
THE Medical Research Council's War Memorandum No. 12, entitled "The Use of Penicillin in Treating War Wounds" (H.M. Stationery Office, 1944. 3d. net), is a valuable publication embodying the instructions issued by the Penicillin Trials Committee of the Medical Research Council. There is a prospect, says the memorandum, that large quantities of penicillin may shortly be available and in particular it may be possible to treat a considerable number of casualties in forthcoming military operations. The memorandum is intended to be a guide for the treatment of battle casualties and for the laboratory control of such treatment, and it does not pretend to be a guide to all the clinical uses of penicillin (for a note on these see NATURE, April 29, p. 521; 1944). Further, its instructions are provisional, because experience of the treatment of wounds with penicillin is still relatively small. The properties of penicillin are briefly discussed, and a list is given of the bacteria which are susceptible and resistant to it. Other sections deal with the preparation of penicillin and with its local and systemic administration, with its uses for particular types of wounds, with failures of the treatment and with the laboratory procedures which are necessary for the control of the treatment (diagnosis of the bacteria present, titration of the penicillin content of the blood and of the potency of the penicillin). The memorandum concludes with a valuable list of selected publications and memoranda on penicillin.
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Penicillin Treatment of War Wounds. Nature 153, 767 (1944). https://doi.org/10.1038/153767c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/153767c0