Antibiotic Therapy *

The advent of each new antibiotic is not an unmixed blessing. The advantage of acquiring another agent whose range of antibacterial activity parallels that of already existing antibiotics is somewhat offset by the necessity of re-evaluating the known in the light of the new unknown. And involved is not just the effectiveness of one agent versus another, but the relative cost, potential toxicity, and inherent capacity to induce resistance of each. The following is a brief summary of the present status of antibiotic therapy. In addition to a table listing the drugs of choice for systemic use against the micro-organisms most commonly involved in clinical infections, it includes a brief discussion of the principles underlying antibiotic treatment based on experimental findings. It is neither a review of the literature nor a handy compendium of drug dosages but rather represents current experience and thinking in a field in which the author has been working for a number of years.