Medicine: Dangerous Drug

The best drug to cure dread staphylococcus bloodstream infections is sulfathiazole, a sulfanilamide relative which came out last year.

Last December Winthrop Chemical Co., a reputable Manhattan firm, shipped out 410,000 sulfathiazole tablets throughout the U. S. Several days later a doctor complained that the pills made a patient dangerously drowsy. Company chemists discovered to their horror that they had been accidentally mixed with a powerful sleeping powder, phenobarbital (popularly known as luminal).* In large doses, phenobarbital, like other sedatives, may prove fatal.

The contaminated batch was clearly marked MP029. The company said...

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