RUSSIAN WOUNDED

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 51, 11 May 1942, Page 6

RUSSIAN WOUNDED

SAVED BY NEW BRITISH DRUG TRIED OUT IN LONDON BLITZ Thousands of lives are being saved in Russia's armies by treating their wounds with the group of drugs known as the sulphonamides including the famous M & B f>93. Supplies of it have formed part of shipments of drugs dispatched from Britain to Russia. In bombed cities as on battlefields many lives can be lost from the infection of Avounds. When the wounded have to be carried long distances. as in Russia, or wait their turn for I surgical operations, it may be too late to prevent extension of the infection and the deadly bacteria from circulating through the blood stream. When sulphonamides first came into use in medicine they were administered by mouth or by injection and combated infection after being conveyed to the infected tissues by

the blood stream. About three years ago American surgeons showed that one of the sulphonamide group, known as sulphanilamide, could be applied in powder form directly to a wound and that, if this was done in the early stages, infection of the wound could be prevented. Early in the Avar this procedure was developed by British Army doctors in France, and, although the records obtained were largely lest in the evacuation from Dunkirk, surgeons brought back very favourable impressions of the new technique. It was in London's air raids, with hundreds of people receiving dirty wounds like those of batlcfields, that a .more complete body of clinical data was first obtained. In the British Army wounded and civilian "blitz" casualties M & B WW wqs much em ployed for local application to wounds, and another drug of this group—sulphathiazole (M & B 760) may be even more useful for this purpose. It Is made by the British firm of chemists who discovered M & B 693 and also the more recent diamidincs which have effected striking cures of certain tropical diseases. The introduction of M & B G93 and of the diamidincs are landmarks in medical science.