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Show HEALTH HORIZONS New Drug Avoids Pitfalls of Aspirin and Steroid Therapy ' ' Recently at a mixlical convention In Atlanta, a medical xpecinlist In rheumatoid arthriii pronounced Arthropan, a new potent liquid anal gesic, the safest remedy for that ailment and equal to effectivenesa to othem including the steroids. A long term study van made of 32 patient, . the parley was told. The group was treated with Arthropan. In addition. ' 4 patients also received steroids, 5 weie given sedatives and 2 received re-ceived steroids and sedatives. 87.5 of the patients were reported as showing excellent to good results and only 12.5 showed temporary relief. Only 3 patients suffered mild side effects of salicylate therapy, such as gastric distress and tinnitus, which disappeared after slight reduction re-duction in dosage. None had the discomforts of ateroids, such as bone disorders and peptic ulcers. This Southern Medical Meeting simply added to the affirmations of other medical researchers. Last November a team of Navy physicians physi-cians led by Captain Geoije M. Davis, U Naval Hospital, Oakland, California, told Illinois doctors that Arthropan was shown to be at least as effective and probably prob-ably better tolerated than aspirin in the treatment of rheumatic lever and rheumatoid arthritis. Arthropan has proved more versatile ver-satile than its discoverers imagined. Not only is it a general pain killer, an anti-inflammatory and. antirheumatic anti-rheumatic agent, but it also reduces fever while avoiding all of the side effects associated with aspirin. Just how the drug works was recently explained by a Bronx Veteran's Administration Hospital scientist who described it as containing con-taining a newly discovered molecule, choline salicylate, which is easy to take and highly palatable (cherry-flavored) (cherry-flavored) with a solubility so great that it is absorbed into the bloodstream blood-stream five times more rapidly than aspirin and is able to reach ita therapeutic peak 12 times faster. Ever since their Introduction as therapeutic agents over a century ago, salicylates have continued to ' retain their unchallenged position 1 as the most effective and least toxic agents of choice for use as analgesics, anal-gesics, anti-fever and anti-inflara- , matory drugs. However, a marked disadvantage of most available salicylates is not only their lack of adaptability to administration in liquid form, but the fact that the long term use and excessive dosages may result in dangerous side effects. In Arthropan (choline salicylate) a drug is now available to the medical medi-cal profession which overcomes to a great degree most of the disadvantages disadvan-tages of other salicylates and, in addition, provides the markedly desirable de-sirable therapeutic asset of significantly signifi-cantly more rapid absorption into the blood than can be obtained from other salicylate forms. |