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IN A PRELIMINARY paper (1) in 1941 we reported that sulfaguanidine, a sulfonamide employed to combat intestinal infections, produced a remarkable enlargement of the thyroid gland in rats, either in the presence or absence of paraaminobenzoic acid. The widespread use of sulfonamides,3 and the certainty of their ever-extending use in both therapy and prophylaxis, demanded an immediate and detailed investigation of this effect on the thyroid gland (and possibly on the basal metabolic rate) of the rat and other experimental animals to provide a basis for the search of a similar reaction in man. Furthermore, since this effect was not prevented in the rat by paraaminobenzoic acid, and therefore did not parallel the bacteriostatic activity of sulfaguanidine, the possibility of elucidating other biological reactions, and hence new therapeutic uses for sulfonamides, could not be overlooked.
Mackenzie et al. (Mon,) studied this question.