Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy—1970

The term "infectious (liseases" conjures visions of foul miasmas, fever swamps, great plagues ancl ol0(Paul 1\Iuni movies. 'Most of us wlho practice the specialty, lhowever, may go weeks witlhout conquering an epi(lemic. Much of our time is spent answering questioins that do not bear on the broad aspects of infectious (lisease strategy, but (leal witlh the often more (lifficult tactical questions of treating a specific p)atient. Th'lese questions, suclh as: Is minocylene good for gonorrhlea? Wlhat (loes lhemoclialysis do to Keflin blood levels? Is the Pneumococcus sensitive to Gentamicin? are often trivial in themselves, btut may become quite important in a clinical situation. The answers to suclh questions on antibiotic usage are not easy to find. Most textbooks are not current enoughl for good information on new drugs, and tlle major journals do not usually concern themselves witlh the minutia of antibiotic tuse. One place to look for answers to such questions is in the annual Antimi-crobial Agents and Chemnotherapy volumes of which this present volume is the tenthi. These volumes contain slhort papers which have been presented at the Inter-science Conference oIn Antimicrobial Agents and Clhemotherapy. This conference is lheld each year, in the fall, by the American Society for MIicrobiology in association witlh the Infectious Disease Society of America. The present volume contains 102 of the 180 papers presented at Chicago in October of 1970. As is to be expected for a conference of this type, the papers vary widely in their audience appeal. Mfany of them are of interest only to pharmacologists or clhemists specializing in antibiotics. I would estimate that about 15% of the papers fall into this group. A second group of papers deal witlh clinical investigational studies of antibiotics not yet available on the market. These papers are of value in givinig advance information on (Irugs that may be released in the next year or two. Of particular interest are a pair of carbenicillin derivatives, BRI, 2288 and an indyl ester of carbenicillin. The former drug, a development of Beechan Researclh Laboratories, lhas a greater anti-Pseudomonas activity than does carbenicillin wlhile the indyl ester is the first oral agent effective in Pseu(lomonas urinary triact infections. Otlher antibiotics described seem to have only marginal superiority over drugs now in use. One of these, Pivampicillin, for example gives higlher bloodl levels after ingestion than does ampicillin; since the blood levels of ampi-cillin are, lhowever, adequate for …