"Remarkable improvement": sulfa drugs and pediatric meningococcal meningitis, 1937-1949.

Lauded as one of the greatest developments of 20th-century medicine, the “wonder drug” penicillin reshaped the treatment of infectious diseases and altered patterns of mortality. As a result, the breakthrough that preceded penicillin—the development of the sulfonamides—is often overlooked.1–3 Using records from Sydenham Hospital, amunicipal communicable disease institution in Baltimore, Maryland, in which nearly 75% of patients were children, we show the transformative role that sulfa drugs played in pediatric practice through a case study of meningococcal meningitis.4