Follow-up study of fatal penicillin reactions; special report.

Abstract

During the years 1952 and 1953, the Office of Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York investigated eight fatal reactions after penicillin injection, and I published a report in theNew York State Journal of Medicineof May 15, 1954, entitled Eight Fatal Anaphylactic Reactions to Penicillin.1This article was immediately widely reported in the lay press in many lands and languages. In the Sept. 4, 1954, issue ofThe Journalthere appeared a full abstract of the article. In the November, 1954, issue ofCoronetmagazine, a lay science writer abstracted the original article without our knowledge and called it Penicillin Turns Killer. From the time of the publication of the original article, a large amount of mail was received both from the medical profession and from the allied professions and laity. All the above is mentioned because by the time the stir this article created