Procaine penicillin with aluminium monostearate; infrequent injections for children.

OF all the methods of delaying the absorption of intramuscular penicillin, combination with procaine is at present foremost (Florey 1952). Procaine penicillin is most effective when the particles are smaller than 5 µ and are suspended in a peanut-oil medium with 2% (w/v) aluminium monostearate (Thomas et al. 1948). Emery et al. (1949) showed that in children a serum-penicillin level above 0-06 unit per ml. would persist for 48 hours after suitable doses graded according to age-i.e., 75,000-150,000 units for infants, 150,000 units for children aged 1-4, and 300,000 units for children aged more than 5. We describe here an attempt to deter-