Evaluation of Treatment of Typhoid Fever

Many attempts have been made in the past to discover an ideal treatment for typhoid fever. The first promising attempt in this direction was made by McSweeney in 1946 who published reports of 5 cases of typhoid fever treated with large doses of penicillin and sulphathiazole (McSweeney, 1946). Earlier in the same year Bigger (1946) had observed that the growth of Salmonella typhi in cultures was prevented by a combination of penicillin and sulphathiazole, although acting independently these agents had little effect on the organisms. McSweeney in 1946 described the treatment of typhoid fever with penicillin and sulphathiazole. He used two courses of this combined therapy. Each course consisted of 10 mega units of penicillin and 34 gm. of sulphathiazole given in equally divided doses for 4 days. The second course was given by McSweeney after an interval of 2 to 3 days and he believed that this was necessary to allow the persisting bacteria to grow after the first course so that these could be dealt with by the second course.