Orally administered antibiotics in burn shock

Abstract

Neomycin was given to rats by stomach tube prior to their being subjected to burn shock. When compared with controls, the combined results of several experiments showed an increase in the survival time of the treated rats which was significant at a P level of between 0.01 and 0.025. The beneficial effect of this neomycin prophylaxis could not readily be explained. Limited experimentation did not support the view that either a reduction in the bacterial population of the intestine or the total elimination of a particular bacterial species or genus could account for this effect. These possibilities, however, were not completely ruled out by our experiments.