Chapter 244 A Miraculous New Drug

After coming out of the ward, Constantine, led by Dean Macaulay and Nina, came to the Dean's office at the end of the corridor.

"How is it? Dean Macaulay, is Prontosil useful for fighting bacterial infections?" Constantine asked impatiently before waiting for the three to sit down.

Hearing Constantine's words, Nina and Macaulay looked at each other, then nodded together, and replied excitedly: "It's a miracle, Your Highness, this is the first time in human history. It's like snatching the lives of these guys back from the hands of death. It's unbelievable."

The expressions of the two revealed the excitement that could not be concealed.

After that, Nina handed a brown bottle to Constantine.

Constantine carefully observed the white powder in the bottle and thought that this was Prontosil.

Its other name may be more well-known-sulfonamide.

"Your Highness, we used this drug to treat the injured soldiers as you said, and the effect of this drug was unexpectedly good. In fact, without this miraculous drug, the amputees in the ward would hardly survive. Before the emergence of this drug, even if the amputees did not die from excessive bleeding, they could hardly escape bacterial infection," said Dean Macaulay.

"Who would have thought that this dye would have such a magical effect? ​​This drug can inhibit the growth of bacteria in the patient's wound. I can't think of any other explanation for this except miracles." Dean Macaulay, as a doctor, can better understand the great significance of this drug than Nina, the manager of a pharmaceutical company.

When Constantine came to the hospital in the rear to inspect the injured soldiers during the Battle of Salonika, he was deeply shocked by the miserable conditions in the field hospital.

Throughout the field hospital, the screams and wails of the soldiers came one after another, the ground was covered with dazzling black blood spots, and flies buzzed back and forth, lingering among the rotten limbs and rotten flesh.

The stench of blood mixed with the smell of rotting meat flowing with green water was almost suffocating.

People who were not familiar with the situation would probably think they were in hell.

After the wounded soldiers were simply disinfected by the nurses, they were bandaged and lay helplessly on the hospital bed, waiting for the decision of fate.

If they could hold on, they would win their lives!

Whether the wounded soldiers could survive depended mainly on their vitality and willpower!

After learning about the cruel reality that doctors had no antibiotics to use, Constantine thought of sulfonamide, which was originally invented as a red dye and was later discovered by chance to be used as an antibacterial drug.

At Constantine's request, the medical staff received an inexplicable order to try to use Prontosil (another name for sulfonamide) as an antibacterial drug.

In fact, most of the medical staff who received the order at first thought that the order was too absurd to use a drug that had never been proven to be effective to treat the wounded.

In the early 20th century, the pharmaceutical market was full of "secret recipes" and all kinds of "drugs" were advertised. However, doctors knew that the only truly useful drugs were quinine, artemisinin, aspirin, and morphine, which were already recognized. In addition to providing patients with a comfortable recuperation environment, doctors could only hope that patients would recover on their own.

"I think this is simply a gift from God. Prontosil is not only used to treat pioneering wounds. Although we have not had time to figure out why Prontosil can inhibit bacteria, it is certain that this drug can effectively deal with bacteria." Dean Macaulay was so excited that he ignored etiquette and held Constantine's left hand tightly with both hands.

"I even think that all diseases that were previously considered incurable can now be tried with Prontosil, and perhaps more miracles can occur."

As far as Constantine knew, after the war in 1912, the number of soldiers who actually died in the Greek army was 2,896, and the number of injured was 4,327.

It can be said that the use of sulfonamide greatly reduced the casualties of Greek soldiers in this war, thus saving thousands of Greek lives.

"Since Prontosil has proven its value, then, Nina, your Philips Pharmaceutical Company should cooperate with the Athens City Hospital to study this drug as soon as possible. As a drug, Prontosil also has side effects, right?" Constantine told the two.

Constantine remembered that after the emergence of the more perfect antibacterial drug penicillin, sulfonamide quickly disappeared from the public eye because the side effects of sulfonamide were too great and it was easy to poison.

"Then I will start this work now," Dean McCauley hurriedly left the office and went to the laboratory.

Only Constantine and Nina were left in the room.

"Nina, you can see that Prontosil is a new special medicine, and your Philips Pharmaceutical Company is the largest pharmaceutical company in Greece. The army urgently needs to purchase a batch of Prontosil as a military material reserve. This order will be given to your company," Constantine said to Nina.

The largest user of drugs like antibacterial drugs is the military, after all, no one is more likely to be injured than soldiers.

After the production technology of artemisinin was leaked, although Philip Pharmaceuticals is still the largest pharmaceutical manufacturer in Greece, its performance has plummeted.

After all, after Greece defeated the Ottoman Empire in the war of 1895, the morale of the Greek nation and the country was high. It happened that the drug sales agreement reached with the Dutch at that time expired. Without the restrictions of the sales market, relying on the advantages of exclusive technology and the production cost being lower than that of quinine, a special medicine for treating malaria, Philip Pharmaceuticals exported a large amount of artemisinin to foreign countries and made a lot of money in a short period of time.

Philip Pharmaceuticals was in the limelight for a while. Almost all Europeans knew that the Greeks had found a cheap special medicine for malaria.

Philip Pharmaceuticals, which made a lot of money, naturally became the target of everyone's envy. In a very short period of time, there were many cases of commercial spies stealing production technology in the factories producing artemisinin. Even though Constantine sent professional intelligence personnel from the Military Intelligence Department of the General Staff to the factories, he failed to prevent the outflow of artemisinin production technology.

The rapid rise of Philip Pharmaceuticals, which had been in the limelight for a while, came to an abrupt end.

As a manager of a pharmaceutical company, Nina naturally understands the huge wealth behind this new special medicine. The antibacterial drug market is much larger than the malaria drug market.

Prontosil is the second special medicine of Philips Pharmaceuticals, and it will be a growth point for its performance for a long time in the future.