Much has been said about the harmful nature of this drug but Streptomycin still enjoys the privilege of being called a “WONDER DRUG”.
In January 1947, the British Ministry of Health issued a warning against the issue of this drug on the basis of its having proved very dangerous to human health.
Dr. Beddow Bayly, M.R.C.P., L.R.C.P., said: “The basis for the Ministrys warning was contained in the alarming statement that “in the very small number of patients with Tuberculous Meningitis, whose life had been prolonged by the treatment, there has nearly always been permanent serious mental derangement, blindness, or deafness.” Truly a Wonder Drug.”
Again on the 11th November 1949 a PTI message from London said: “The British Medical Journal warned last night that the use of the WONDER DRUGS Streptomycin may have to be abandoned because it is too dangerous.
The Journal said the drug can have serious poisonous effect on the eighth Nerve causing giddiness and deafness and may even upset a patients sense of balance permanently.
The leading article in the Journal said Streptomycin is much more harmful and also less potent than Penicillin and would find no place in therapeutics but for the fact that it acts on many bacteria against which Penicillin is powerless.
The drug is used frequently to combat T.B. but in the majority of cases the Journal stated, patients became resistant to the drug and remained so indefinitely.”
A report published in Revue Medicale of December, 1952, Vol. 4. No. 3. at page 27 says: FATAL ACUTE CEREBRO-PATHY FOLLOWING TREATMENT WITH STREPTOMYCIN. Description is given of a case of Encephalitis ending fatally in the course of treatment with Streptomycin intramuscularly administered. The patient had previously received Penicillin and Auromycin.
The authors review the literature concerning the accidents of neurolgic order subsequent to administration Streptomycin and they point out that, even though such accidents are rarely encountered, they cannot be explained only by a neurotropic depressive action of the antibiotic on the Central Nervous System, but likely by some severe allergic manifestation as may appear in subjects rendered particularly sensitive by a previous treatment with Penicillin and Sulphonamides.
In the present case the encephalopathy had been characterised by fever, obnubilaton of the sensorium, psycho-motor agitation, Cheyne-Stokes respiration and tachycardia. This clinical picture appeared and attained a highly severe pitch at the end of the second day of Streptomycin treatment.”
Streptomycin may be withdrawn from the list of wonder drugs or may be replaced by some other such drug but the misery that it has already wrought on its victims will not be capable of redemption.
Aureomycin and Terramycin: These are the latest additions to the list of Antibiotics, From the reports so far recieved they are in no way less poisonous and more efficacious than their predecessors. They are at the same time much more costly than Streptomycin.
A latest report published in Revue Medical of December, 1952 Vol. IV, No. 3 says: “Toxic reaction to Aureomycin and Terramycin administered orally include Colitis, which is sometimes mild, but frequently is severe enough to require hospitalization for three to four weeks. Proctoscopic findings showed erythema and edema of the rectal and sigmoidal mucosa in mild cases; in cases of moderate severity the mucosa was mottled, oedematous and friable, bleeding easily.
The patients with severest disease showed multiple ulcerations, the lumen of the bowel containing pus, mucus and blood Diarrhoea and abdominal discomfort lasted several days to four weeks in the milder cases and two to four weeks in the severer ones. No satisfactory explanation of the pathogenesis of this colitis, which usually develops in from 3 to 14 days after discontinuance of the antibiotic, has yet been found. Effective methods of prevention and treatment have not been developed. The frequency of complications with Aureomycin and Terramycin therapy indicates that these medications should be restricted to case in which they are unequivocally indicted.
Chloramphenicol (Chloromycetin) This antibiotic is second to none of its kind in its toxic effects.
A recent case report published in Revue Medical of December 1952, Vol. IV, No. 3 reads: Two cases of fatal aplastic anemia in patients receiving. Chloramphenicol (Chloromycetin) are reported and the literature is reviewed briefly. In both patients, a 71- years-old widow and a 92-years-old man, an initial course treatment with the antibiotic was uneventful, but resumption of therapy after an interval of several weeks was associated with hematological complications. The onset of purpura in each instance was accompanied by Granulocytopenia, Leukopenia, Thrombocytopenia and anemia, which gradually increased in severity. Transient clinical improvement followed administration of Corticotropin (ACTH) and Cortisone, which did not reduce the need for whole blood or prevent fatal haemorrhages.
Although chronically ill, debilitated, or aged patients seem more susceptible to the toxic action of this agent, no common denominator has yet been found.”
CHEMICALISED FOODS
No essay on poisonous action of drugs would be complete without mentioning what havoc is being played by chemicalised foods which are being consumed by this modern world of ours.
Chemicals taken in any form whether as medicine or as food are equally injurious to human health.
Medical science, especially surgery, has made vast strides during the last 50 years or so. But inspite of better living conditions public health has gone down very much. New diseases, especially mental, have sprung up with every stride of medical advancement.
The reason of this health demoralisation is not far to seek. Food is the basic element in the preservation of health, but never was our food so much contaminated by chemicals as we have today.
Dr. Macpherson Laurie, physicians in psychological medicine to Queen Marys Hospital, London, believes that mental deficiency or disease is caused by our eating processed, devitalised and chemicalised foods. According to him a Grocers shop or Bakers shop is nothing short of a Chemists shop which means the “Half- way-house to Hospital”.
Dr. William Meninger, Chief of U.S. Army Psychiatry, during the second World War reported: “Half of our hospital beds in America are devoted to mental illness, we wish we knew why.”
Dr. Louis Berman, M.D., has written in his outstanding book, FOOD AND CHARACTER, “Never has culture been so advanced and complex as in our time, and never has there been so much mental disease, crime, insanity and degeneracy”. He believes that chemicalised foods have a great bearing on our character and mental make up. According to him Bakers flour bleached with “AGENE” is responsible for causing hysteria.
Chemicalised foods like chemicals cause damage to our Endocrine glands which control our emotions and mental equilibrium.
There is enough evidence to prove that our negative emotions, hates, fears, brutalities and criminal moods are by large the result of our chemicalised foods and drinks.
The fault lies with us, because we defy the laws of nature regarding our food. Chemicalised food is responsible for inducing so many diseases of degeneration including Insanity, Paralysis and Cancer.
WHAT HOMOEOPATHY CAN DO
We are living in a chemical age and we cannot imagine what a chemical laboratory is capable of producing. But we do know one thing at least and that ought to be enough to keep away from chemicals. It is, as we have already said, that all chemicals are poisonous.
We know that human body is an extremely delicate and sensitive machine and as such it is capable of registering the slightest stimulus given to it. This may not be visible to us or we may not be able to feel or perceive it in its early stages, but the accumulative effect of these become visible after some time. Human body resists every such stimulus as best as it can but a stage arrives when it can no more stand against it and a break down results. It is immaterial whether the stimulus was caused by a chemical or any other substance.
The human body has a natural aversion to anything foreign to it and it tries to throw out any substance foreign to it. This struggle to throw out foreign matter results in a disease and its nature and intensity varies according to the virulence of the foreign matter and the amount of strength or energy spent by the body in its struggle to throw it out. This is why the body reacts so forcefully whenever any chemical substance is put into it in massive and material doses.
To avert this catastrophe caused by the administration of chemicals in material doses Hahnemann founded Homoeopathy. It will be found very surprising, but at the same time very interesting, to know that the very fact that all chemicals or drugs cause their own drug disease made it possible for Hahnemann to experiment with new drugs and record their provings on healthy human beings.
