1964 Volume 17 Issue 2 Pages 82-87
In Japan, sulfa drugs were introduced for bacillary dysentery in 1941, but became almost ineffective in 1949 as the result of ensuing sulfa-resistant Shigella. Chloramphenicol and chlortetracycline were introduced in 1950 and revealed the therapeutic results comparable to early ones with sulfas. Since then these two antibiotics have been used for bacillary dysentery. With an extensive use of these antibiotics, however, Shigella highly resistant to them have appeared and tended to increase year by year. According to the survey made in major cities in Japan, antibiotic-resistant Shigella were recovered at 5% or so in 1957, 8~10% in 1958, 10~20% in 1959~1960, and 20~30% in 1961. Therefore, how to cope with. the cases infected wiʇh such resistant Shigella raises an urgent question in Japan.
This paper will describe the present status of the Shigella resistant to common antibiotics that were examined in 6 major cities in Japan, Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe, and refer to the chemotherapy of such resistant cases, especially to the kanamycin discovered by Hamao Umezawa.
