抄録
The last decade was the most brilliant period in the history of anti-tuberculosis campaign since the time of Robert Koch. The appearance of some revolutionary chemotherapeutic agents has decreased the mortality due to this infectious disease in a definite way. This was particularly striking here in Japan where tuberculosis has been No. 1 killer for many years. Streptomycin was the first agent which evidently proved that tuberculosis can be cured by drugs. Ever since, being encouraged by this fact, further efforts have been concentrated on search for more effective and less toxic antibiotics or chemical compounds. The works have been conducted in a more extensive scale than the previous times, as they are called“screening test”. Paraaminosalicylic acid (PAS) and isonicotinic acid hydrazide are the representatives among the drugs of signal value obtained in such an organized and systematic investigation.
Also in this country, works have been carried out in many laboratories searching for new antituberculous drugs. In fact, there have been presented some agents having definite activity against tubercle bacilli in vitro and sometimes even in vivo. Quite recently, after ten years of such kind of experience, this country has obtained her own antibiotic of clinical significance, kanamycin, as a powerful antituberculous agent equal in efficacy to streptomycin and isoniazid. Umezawa and his associates (1957) have the honor of the first discoverer of this antibiotic. They have been searching for basic and water-soluble antibiotics having no delayed toxicity, the idea being that such antibiotics would be active against tubercle bacilli equally in vivo and in vitro as precedented by streptomycin, fradiomycin and viomycin. Kanamycin was one of the products of such study. On the other hand, the author's laboratory has been in the position to be trusted with the test of newly isolated antibiotics and synthetic materials sent from many laboratories in this country for the presumed antituberculous activity. Those samples have been brought into our routine assay work one after another, mostly in vitro and sometimes in mice and in guinea pigs, to examine whether or not they are truly active in inhibiting the growth of virulent tubercle bacilli. The works have been carried out for ten years without coming across any promising agents. However, we have finally had an opportunity to demonstrate that kanamycin isolated in our own institute is another potent antituberculous antibiotic. Of course, it must be noted that independent research works on tuberculosis chemotherapy have been also conducted in other various laboratories of this country, sometimes each standing on a different academic viewpoint and sometimes aiming at analysis of particular aspects of the problem.
At this time, the present author thinks that the time has come to review the recent works made by Japanese workers searching for antituberculous drugs and thereby to grasp the outlook on the future aspects of the problem. It goes a without saying that the works in this country have been progressing under the influence of foreign literatures, and that this review should be written in the world-wide scope. However, it is beyond the author's capacity to make such a complete monograph of this problem in the limited space of paper. Therefore, the author should like to confine the scope within research works made in this country alone. If this review, although it may be quite sketchy, would be able to introduce the main aspects of the recent advances in experimental research of tuberculosis chemotherapy in Japan, the author's effort would be amply rewarded.
