Anna Mae Anderson, age 13, of Gulfport, Miss., for her question:
WHAT DISEASES CALL FOR THE USE OF SULFA DRUGS?
Sulfa drugs or sulfonamides are a group of chemicals that are used to fight bacteria and some other organisims that cause disease in the body. In general, sulfa drugs are used to treat such diseases as pneumonia, dysentery, meningitis, blood poisoning, urinary tract infections and some venereal diseases.
Other diseases treated with sulfa drugs are erysipelas, cellulitis, bubonic plague and cholera.
All sulfa drugs contain sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen. They are called "sulfa" drugs because of their similar chemical makeup. But each one is a little different in structure.
Knowledge of the possible benefits of the sulfonamides dates back to 1908 when a German chemist named Paul Geimo, looking for better dyes for woolen goods, discovered the chemicals that eventually led to the sulfa drugs.
But it wasn't until the 1930s that sulfonamides could be used in medicine. In 1935, a German bacteriologist named Gerhard Domagk reported that the sulfonamide drug Prontosil killed streptoccal bacteria in mice. He was offered the Noble prize in medicine for 1939 for his discovery, but the Nazi regime in Germany would not allow him to accept it.
Research in the new chemical spread quickly after Domagk's discovery. Researchers, particularly in the United States, France and England, investigated thousands of related chemicals before they found the few that were the most useful.
The sulfa drugs now used for general body infections include sulfadimethoxi ne, sulfamethazine, sulfisoxazole and sulfadiazine.
Sulfa drugs that are used for infections in the intestinal tract include succinylsulfathiazole and phthalylsulfathiazole.
Thousands and thousands of lives have been saved with the valuable sulfa drugs.
Before scientists discovered the sulfonamides, about 12 of every 100 pneumoccal pneumonia victims died in spite of the use of a serum for pneumonia. After doctors began to use sulfa drugs, the death rate dropped to about five out of 100.
Penicillin, which is not a sulfonamide, further reduced the death rate to from three to four in 100 cases.
The use of sulfa drugs reduced the death rate in one form of meningitis from 35 to 50 out of every 100 cases to about five out of 100.
Sulfa drugs contributed remarkably to the saving of lives in World War II.
Normally, sulfa drugs do not actually kill bacteria. Instead, they prevent the bacteria from multiplying. Then the body's regular defenses usually kill the bacteria.
Sulfonamides are not effective against all bacteria. Therefore, a doctor must identify the type of bacteria that is causing an infection before he knows whether to use a sulfa drugs.