1957 Volume 10 Issue 3 Pages 107-114
Kanamycin is an antibiotic discovered by Ueda, Maeda, Yagishita, Kondō, Okami, Utahara, Osato, Nitta, Takeuchi, and Umezawa(1). Characters of the kanamycin-producing strain and properties of the antibiotic are described in another paper(1). It has basic characters. The hydrochloride is soluble in water and methanol, slightly in ethanol and almost insoluble in esters, ether and petroleum ether. It shows an antibacterial spectrum resembling to streptomycin or fradiomycin (neomycin). It is dextrorotatory. It is negative in Sakaguchi and Elson-Morgan reactions. It exhibits strong inhibition against B. subtilis and K. pneumoniae both by a broth dilution test and a cylinder plate test. These properties differentiate kanamycin from known antibiotics.
Kanamycin has no delayed toxicity. Aqueous soluble and basic antibiotics which show no delayed toxicity, such as streptomycin, fradiomycin (neomycin) and viomycin, are known to exhibit therapeutic effect in vivo. As described in the present paper, kanamycin showed therapeutic effect against mice infection of pneumococcus and typhoid bacilli. The present paper describes acute and chronic toxicity of kanamycin to animals, absorption and excretion in rabbits, and distribution of kanamycin in various organs of rabbits.
