PENICILLIN AND MALARIA

To the Editor:— I was interested to read in the Aug. 28, 1948 issue ofThe Journalan abstract from the Indian Medical Gazette ( 82 :511-558 [Sept.] 1947) of an article by Deshmukh which states that penicillin seems to have a synergistic action in the treatment of acute attacks of malaria and that "penicillin controls the pre-erythrocytic stage of the malarial parasite." There is not a shred of evidence that I know of, unless one accepts the conclusions of Deshmukh, that penicillin has any effect on malaria in man. On the contrary, there is evidence that penicillin has no effect. During the war years I had an opportunity, during studies of new antimalarials, to observe for long periods of time a great many patients with relapsing vivax malaria. Many of them were given penicillin for surgical or medical conditions other than malaria, and many suffered malarial relapses during and after