A two-inch bottle holding what looks like several slivers of dried up American cheese can mean the difference between life and death to a person suffering from bacterial endocarditis — a damaged heart in which germs have lodged.
The "dried up cheese" is penicillin, the great lifesaver, and its use in treating this type of heart malady is comparatively new.
"Eighteen months ago penicil-. lin was first used here at Charity hospital for bacterial endocarditis," Dr. Edgar Hull, head of! Louisiana State university depart-ment of medicine, said today.| "The deaths from the maladyI were 99 per cent. I would tenta-tively say that now 50 per cent may recover when penicillin is used."
Two young doctors at Charity hospital did the research on the use of penicillin for this particu-lar type of heart malady, which brought about 25 cases a year to Charity hospital.
One of the doctors, Dr. Ned McKrill, lost his life soon after he went into the navy as a doctor, when his ship was sunk three months ago. The other doctor, Dr. Louis Levy II, another resident-in-medicine with the LSU unit at Charity hospital, is carrying on the work, Dr. Hull said.
