Last week Dr. Reginald Sterling Mueller of Manhattan's Roosevelt Hospital announced that he had treated 75 cases of peritonitis with sulfanilamide, that not a single one has died. This and other reports made grade A medical news. Reason: the appendectomy is the most common U. S. emergency operation, and every year in the U. S. some 16,000 persons die of peritonitis following ruptures of the appendix. For some months past, several U. S. hospitals have been dousing inflamed peritoneums with sulfanilamide, watched the death rate from appendix ruptures drop from 20% to nearly zero.
This treatment is one more triumph in the...