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Show ffmmm masm Released by Western Newspaper Union. RHEUMATIC FEVER lor many years what are called the salicylates have been the regular regu-lar or routine treatment for rheumatism. rheuma-tism. The salicylate most used is acetylsalicylic acid, Is " i X which gets different names from various drug manufacturers in the United States and Great Britain. What has been known by some physicians phy-sicians but has not been put into use to any extent, is that acetylsalicylic acid used when attacks i Dr. Barton of sore throat occur, may actually prevent pre-vent attacks of rheumatism. The "preventive" treatment of rheumatism rheuma-tism used by some physicians is to have the patient move to a dry warm climate, or by use of large and continued doses of sulfanilamide. sulfanila-mide. Now, every patient cannot move to a dry warm climate and maintaining main-taining a high level of sulfanilamide s is not advisable in some cases. In discussing the natural drawbacks of these two methods of preventing attacks at-tacks of rheumatism, Drs. A. F. Co-burn Co-burn and L. V. Moore, in the Journal of Pediatrics (children's diseases) state that the acetylsalicylic is safe and effective and should be given a trial at the beginning of any infection infec-tion of nose and throat. A study of a group of rheumatic children exposed to the common nose and throat and chest infections is reported. re-ported. A daily dose of 60 to 90 grains of acetylsalicylic acid, depending on size of the patient, was given at first sign of sore throat (pharyngitis) (pharyn-gitis) where examination of organisms organ-isms in the throat were the kind that cause rheumatism. This treatment treat-ment was continued for one month. Forty-seven young rheumatic patients pa-tients received this "preventive" treatment nd only one developed rheumatic fever. Of 139 rheumatic patients who were not given this treatment, 57 developed rheumatic fever and 82 did not. These figures tell their own story; only one of the 47 who took the treatment developed rheumatic fever, that is about 2 per cent, and of the 139 who did not take this treatment, 57 developed rheumatic fever, that is more than 40 per cent. 1 |