Vol 13B No. 4, July 1918
Tropical Medicine
No. of Page: 10
191-201
Further Observations on the Treatment of Yaws with Castellani's Mixture
By L.E. Guerrero, F. Domingo, and M. Arguelles
Department of Medicine, College of Medicine and Surgery, University of the Philippine, Manila, P.I.
Salvarsan and neosalvarsan are, without doubt, the specific remedies for frambaesia; but the high price and shortage of these drugs brought about by the war, the lact of hospital facilities in districts where the disease prevails, and the fact that patients often refuse any kind of injection treatment are some of the considerations that led Castellani, (1,2) in 1915, in Ceylon, and us in the following experiments to use his formula in place of the drugs. TheFormula consists of:
The above is given in one dose, diluted in 4 ounces of water, trice daily, for adults and for children over 14 years of age, half doses to children 8 to 14 years of ages, one-third doses or less to younger children, and not more than half doses to Europeans. According to Castellani the preparations of antimony, which were first introduced in the treatment of yaws by Brault in 1911 have a beneficial effect, but their action is slow. Sodium salicylate apparantlyhastens the disappearance of the thick yellow crusts, due to secondary pyogenic infections. Potassium iodide potentiates tartar emetic, but its great drawback is that the good effects are obtained only by using doses that often give rise to iodism. This and the emetic action of the antimony and potasium tartrate are diminished by the addition of sodium bicarbonate. The formula is pharmaceutically a very inelegant one; it is cloudy and has a sediment due to the formation of antimony oxide. The sediment, however, disappers when each dose is diluted with four times the amount of water or when . . . . . . read more
