1949 - Medicine

Medicine

Biochemists Philip S. Hench and Edward C. Kendall show motion pictures early in the year of patients who have been treated with the cortisone compound ACTH and are able to run after being bedridden for years with arthritis (see 1948). Although the steroid hormone does not cure rheumatoid arthritis and can have major side effects, it can often alleviate its acute pain and will prove useful also in treating Addison's disease, asthma, lupus, rheumatic fever, some serious skin diseases, typhoid fever, and other conditions, but its most enduring long-term use will be as a research tool (see synthesis, 1951).

Pfizer biochemists develop the antibiotic oxytetracycline; Pfizer will be awarded a patent on the drug in 1955, but American Cyanamid's Lederle Laboratories will introduce tetracycline under the trade name Achromycin in 1953 and maintain a large share of the market.

Parke, Davis introduces the antibiotic chloramphenicol under the trade name Chloromycetin; it is hailed as the first major breakthrough against typhoid fever.

Selman Waksman isolates the antibiotic neomycin (see streptomycin, 1943).

Microbiologist Félix d'Hérelle dies at Paris April 25 at age 75, having discovered the bateriophage, a virus that eats bacteria.

A paper published in the Medical Journal of Australia in September by Melbourne psychiatrist John F. J. (Frederick Joseph) Cade, 37, pioneers use of lithium to treat manic depression. Suspecting that the bipolar disorder might be caused by a hormone, Cade collected urine from patients, injected it into guinea pigs, saw that the test animals had seizures, isolated sodium urate, found that animals injected with lithium urate became lethargic rather than manic, obtained the same result with lithium carbonate, and determined that the compound could suppress mood swings that can sometimes be violent. Two articles in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in March have demonstrated lithium toxicity, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will ban use of lithium until 1970, but while it can have unpleasant side effects, lithium therapy will revolutionize treatment of bipolar disorder.

Bombay (Mumbai) cardiologist Rustom Jal Vakil, 38, reports in the prestigious British Heart Journal that he has lowered blood pressure effectively using powdered root from the tropical plant Rauwolfia serpentina (see 1952).