PARA-AMINOBENZOIC ACID TREATMENT OF ROCKY MOUNTAIN SPOTTED FEVER

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The use of p-aminobenzoic acid (PABA) in the treatment of several of the rickettsial diseases has been reported recently. Following the experimental work of various investigators, Yeomans, Snyder, Murray, Zarafonetis and Ecke1 gave the clinical results of the effect of p-aminobenzoic acid given orally to 20 patients with louse-borne typhus in Egypt. The course of the disease was favorably modified when treatment was begun early. Tierney2 in an exceedingly well controlled study showed conclusively that the drug is effective therapeutically in tsutsugamushi fever or scrub typhus. He reported the cases of 34 patients with this disease between the ages of 21 and 45, 18 of whom received p-aminobenzoic acid. None of the treated patients died, whereas 3 of the 16 untreated succumbed. More convincing was the prompt drop in temperature and the subsidence of symptoms following the administration of p-aminobenzoic acid to the patients