“A Startling New Chemotherapeutic Agent”: Pediatric Infectious Disease and the Introduction of Sulfonamides at Baltimore’s Sydenham Hospital

Using pediatric patient records from Baltimore’s Sydenham Hospital, this article explores the adoption of sulfa drugs in pediatrics. It discusses how clinicians dealt with questions of dosing and side effects and the impact of the sulfonamides on two diagnoses in children: meningococcal meningitis and pneumonia. The care of infants and children with infectious diseases made demands on physicians and nurses that differed from those facing clinicians treating adult patients. The article demonstrates the need to distinguish between pediatric and adult medical history. It suggests that the new therapeutics demanded more intense bedside care and enhanced laboratory facilities, and as a result paved the way for the adoption of penicillin. Finally, it argues that patient records and the published medical literature must be examined together in order to gain a full understanding of how transformations in medical practice and therapeutics occur.