Even to treat colitis, some ten years ago the so-called sulfa drugs acquired popular usage. Their power to treat and control infections is truly nothing short of miraculous. Invalids who in former days might well have been considered doomed now get well overnight and bloom with vitality. Some of the cures effected are spectacular enough to startle even the staid medical profession. Little wonder then the public carries to excess the enthusiasm naturally arising from the discovery of such a Godsend that answered their call for a treatment!
Many years ago, a man far wiser than most of his fellow men contrived a bit of verse which ran something like this:
“Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.”
He might well have had in mind the remedies which can be known as the wonder drugs. As their use swept the country, it was found that, while they had a miraculous power of controlling some infections, they were decidedly useless in others. Thus the wonder drug lost claim to the title of “a cure-all.” Experience has proven that they have great value in selected cases.
Continued experience, however, proves still further that these drugs were not unmixed blessings. In the early days of the sulfa drug some people were killed by the very remedy that was supposed to save them. In some instances, crystals of the drug formed in the kidney and led to untold suffering and finally death.
I am relating these things not to detract from the truly marvelous powers of these drugs but to point out how dangerous it is to attempt to use them without competent medical guidance. Some people are definitely hypersensitive (some say allergic) to these drugs and their taking them only invites serious trouble. So bear these things in mind if and when you are tempted to “try sulfa.” It is heartening, however, to know that the wizards of pharmaceutical chemistry are making these drugs less and less toxic and more effective against germs. However, they all require careful handling. So play canasta or midget golf but don’t try playing doctor with your colitis, at least not with the sulfa drugs.
