Observations on cholera treated orally and intravenously with antibiotics. With particular reference to the number of vibrios excreted in the stool

Abstract

In order to determine the effect of antibiotics on the course of cholera, precise observations of clinical symptoms and quantitative examination of vibrios in the stool were carried out on 17 patients with cholera El Tor from the Philippines. Seven patients were treated orally with kanamycin, tetracycline, chloramphenicol or erythromycin, 7 intravenously with chloramphenicol or tetracycline, and 3 were not given any antibiotic.Both the oral and the intravenous routes of administration of the antibiotics were suitable for shortening the period of diarrhoea and reducing the excretion of vibrios in the stool.The number of vibrios in 1 ml of watery stool during the first day of illness was about 10(8) in every case. There was marked reduction in the number within 1 hour, and complete disappearance of vibrios within 10 hours, of the start of treatment in most cases. However, vibrios reappeared later in some cases.Kanamycin, a non-absorbable antibiotic, was found to be less effective than adsorbable antibiotics such as chloramphenicol and tetracycline.