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The contrast between the behaviour of hospital staphylococci
and those isolated from patients attending Public
Health clinics or their family doctors is very strikingly
illustrated. It will be seen, for example, that while, in
hospital, the efficacy of penicillin in this type of infection
has clearly reached its nadir, its usefulness even in
domiciliary and clinic practice has dwindled to about half of
what it was ten years ago. The obvious lesson to be learned
from figures such as these is that it is only by laboratorycontrolled
discrimination in their use can these potentially
powerful agents, which have flowed in such profusion from
Sir Alexander Fleming's great discovery, continue to play
their part in the continuing battle against microbial infection.
In all these endeavours it is essential that the harmonious
integration of public health, general practitioner and
laboratory services should be fostered and maintained.
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