Scrub Typhus
p. 34 · Read in the full issue
THE new antibiotic drug Chloromycetin against scrub-typhus, demonstrated by an American research unit in Malaya in collaboration with Malayan in vestigators at the Institute for Medical Research, Kuala Lumpur, was success fully tried out on human volunteers in known infected areas of scrub-typhus.
Since then, in trials of the drug made by
chemical synthesis, two Ghurkas, in fected in Malaya during jungle warfare against bandits, one very severely, one moderately, were completely cured. The temperature reached normal in 48 hours, and convalescence was uneventful. The drug is also reputed to have a powerful mitigating effect against typhoid fever, and it has recently been used in typhoid cases in England. Scrub typhus is preva lent in Indonesia, and it has been a deadly disease in New Guinea.