The Treatment of Subacute Bacterial Endocarditis with Aureomycin and Chloromycetin

PRIOR to the introduction of penicillin subacute bacterial endocarditis was nearly always fatal. In the past five years the many reports that have appeared on penicillin therapy of this infection indicate that bacteriologic cure may be expected in the majority of cases. A review of 817 cases treated with penicillin during the past five years has revealed a rate of cure of 72 per cent.1 Those cases of subacute bacterial endocarditis in which the etiologic bacterium was Streptococcus viridans have yielded most readily to penicillin.2 , 3 However, Streptococcus faecalis (enterococcus), being more resistant to penicillin, has been responsible for infections that . . .