>
> >In my search for dates I cam up with this gem.    I am too busy to read it
> properly, but it looks good.  Enjoy.
>

To quote the authors:

"The effective use of sulfa drugs as chemotherapeutic agents has frequently
been seriously hindered by the appearance of resistant or drug-fast
organisms
(Henry, 1943; Northey, 1948). It is conceivable that a similar phenomenon
may arise in American-foulbrood-infected larvae receiving sulfa drugs since
it has been mentioned earlier that strains of B. larvae could adapt
themselves
to a tenfold increase in the amount of the drug. However, this possibility
may
not be serious owing to the short period of contact of the vegetative cells
in
the larvae with the drug and to the rapidity with which the adapted
organisms
may lose their "resistance" on further growth in the absence of the drug."

This is my point exactly about the misuse of OTC patties by constant
application.  This did not allow selective pressure against against any
resistant mutants, when they needed to compete against "wild types."

"To many beekeepers, the announcement of the preventive properties, often
perverted to "curative properties," of sulfa drugs for American foulbrood
was the
answer to the problem. Before long, however, with the repeated observation
of disease recurrence after sulfa drug treatment, it was realized that
considerable
caution was required in the use of these drugs, that they did not cure an
infected
colony since they did not kill the spores of B. larvae, that indiscriminate
and
careless use and undue reliance on their effectiveness might result in
masking the
disease and in disseminating it widely, and that their application at the
wrong
part of the season was not only ineffective but also resulted often in the
contamination
of market honey with small but detectable traces of the drugs."

This sounds a little different than the nostalgic waxing recently posted
about the use of sulfa.

Randy Oliver

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