Failures with aureomycin in the treatment of infection with Brucella suis; a report of three cases.

Abstract

Aureomycin has been reported to be effective in the treatment of acute brucellosis. Spink and associates 1 noted a dramatic therapeutic effect in 24 patients acutely ill with brucellosis (var. melitensis). Four relapses occurred in this group. Others 2 have recently reported favorable results in a smaller number of patients. We have used aureomycin alone in the initial treatment of 3 laboratory workers who were infected with Brucella suis. Our results have been dissimilar from those reported by others. REPORT OF CASES Case 1.— A white man. aged 28 had chills, fever, headache and malaise twenty-one days after an exposure to Br. suis. He entered the hospital after eighteen days of a moderate febrile illness. The organism was obtained from blood drawn on the eighteenth and twentieth days of illness. On the twentieth day aureomycin hydrochloride therapy was started in doses of 1 Gm. every six hours and continued for