Sulfa Drugs and World War Ⅱ (설파제와 제2차 세계대전)

Throughout most of histofy, military forces during times of war have traditionally lost more men to sickness, disease, and infection than to battlefield action. So during World War Ⅱ, the treatment of wounds and the containment of disease were top priorities of the US Army and Navy. Even though penicillin had been developed by this time, the miracle drug had not gone into widespread production. Instead, physicians relied on the only antibiotics available: the recently discovered sulfa drugs.

 

미국이 전쟁에 참전한 1941년에 설파닐아미드는 미국 군인들 사이에서 수막염을 위한 선택약이었다. 설파제는 또한 설사, 이질, 발열, 상처, 화상 등 감염에 관련된 질환을 치료하는데 사용되어졌다.

 

By 1943, however, the US Navy was fighting a losing battle against crowding, poor living conditions, and a rapid spread of Streptococcus bacteria that caused scarlet fever and strep throat. The navy cleaned and disinfected barracks, isolated people who were thought to be carriers, and moved training camps away from areas of high incidence.

 

바이러스 유행을 감소시키기 위한 이러한 방법들이 실패했을 때, 해군은 대규모의 화학적 예방(질병 확산을 예방하기 위한 약물 투여)을 설파제로 하기로 결심했다. 5개의 해군 훈련센터에서 뽑힌 모집자들은 매일 적은 용량의 sulfadiazine 을 받았고, 그 동안에 같은 센터에 있는 다른 사람들도 대조군으로써 관찰되었다. 최소 일주일 안에 치료를 받고 있는 그룹의 질병률이 드라마틱하게 떨어졌고 ― 한 센터의 대조그룹의 치료율은 15 퍼센트 정도 밖에 안되었다. 3개월 이내에 해군은 테스트 센터에 있는 모든 모집자들에게 치료를 오픈하였으며, 세개의 추가 시설에도 프로그램을 확장시켰다.

 

The program was a striking success, saving the navy an estimated 1 million man days and between $50 million and $100 million in 1944 dollars. In less than a year, however, bacteria had become resistant to the drugs, and in the last months of the war, the many abandoned its daily medication program. Safer antibiotics, including penicillin, became available soon after, and the use of sulfa drugs declined after the war.

 

 

On December 5, 1941, the New York City surgeon John Moorhead gave a lecture in Honolulu advising the treatment of wartime wounds with sulfa drugs. Two days later, Pearl Harbor was attacked, and Moorhead and members of his audience put these guidelines into practice caring for the injured.

 

Sulfa drugs helped bring the US military death rate from meningitis down to a mere 4 percent in World War Ⅱ, compared with 31 percent in World War Ⅰ.

 

Between December 1943 and June 1944, about 1 million men participated in the sulfa drug chemoprophylaxis program, 600,000 as recipients and 400,000 as controls.