W-1915-JVMJ.DOC

Generation +2 Granddaughter of William Landau of Oberlin Ks; daughter #1's third daughter

	1913 Van Horn-Johnson
born	1913-08-17 James LeRoy Van Horn	1915-05-09 Marine Johnson Kanona KS
married	19__ Oberlin KS
died
father		1878 Oscar Johnson
mother		1880 Dora Landau
#1 child	1943 Linda Van Horn
#2	1944-11-30 Mary Van Horn

Marine (Johnson) Van Horn

BOZEMAN MONTANA NEWS PAPER CLIPPING, 1944

PENICILLIN CREDITED WITH SAVING LIFE OF BOZEMAN WOMAN

Believed to be First Time used in State on Civilian

One of the most recent drug discovered in medical history, penicillin, was used on a civilian for the first time in Montana, ban 7 at the Deaconess hospital. This famed drug was obtained and used on a patient who was near death by Dr R G Scherer, and is credited by the doctor with saving the patients life.

The case history brought out the fact that the patient, Mrs Leroy Van Horn, gave birth to a baby Nov 30 and following a normal delivery apparently was well on the road to recovery. She sat up on the eight day and was prepared to return to her home on the tenth day, but developed a fever which began a steady rise and intermittently drop.

It further developed that Mrs Von Horn was suffering from multiple abscesses in the kidneys and Dr. Scherer used all means at his disposal including the famed sulpha drug, but seemingly to no avail. When it became apparent that little hope could be held for her recovery, Dr Schere immediately got in touch with the National Research council.

As penicillin is such a rare drug, and the civilian supply is very limited, this drug is very difficult to obtain. Dr Scherer called Rochester where he contacted Chester S Keefer, of Boston, chairman of the National Research Council who took the matter under advisement on Jan 4. In order to secure the drug the patient must have a negative blood count but in this case the blood count was not negative, thus creating a further doubt as to its availability in this case.

The drug was dispatched by plane from Chicago but the plane was grounded in Minneapolis, completing its journey by train. The penicillin came from the Abbott Laboratories in North Chicago, the only civilian supply in the world, and arrived in Boseman Jan 6. At the time of its arrival Mrs Van Horn was running a temperature of 107 1/2 and was in a sinking condition. Ampoules of 100,000 unit sizes were received and were administered by the continuous intravenous drip method for a period of 8 days.

Mrs Van Horn soon began to show improvement and on Jan 25 was able to walk out of the hospital. "Without it she would not be here now, I am sure, it is unbelievable what it did for her." said Dr Scherer.

The drug looks like mould in its original form and is prepared for use at the hospital. It is supplied as a desiccated powder in hermetically sealed ampoules and are available singly or in boxes of six ampoules of either the 25000 unit or 100000 unit sizes.

When adequate doses of penicillin are used in the treatment of acute infections due to organisms which are susceptible to this agent, there is, according to current clinical reports, decided clinical and bacteriologic improvement in a period of forty-eight to seventy two hours. Failure of such improvement to occur, when adequate doses of penicillin are used, would suggest that the organism is not susceptible to this antibiotic agent and in view of the restricted supplies of penicillin, it would seem advisable to discontinue its use in the cases and employ other therapeutic agents.