Definition of "sulfanilamide" []

• A white, odorless crystalline sulfonamide, C6H8N2SO2, used in the treatment of various bacterial infections. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Antibiotics were first discovered in the early 1900's when a drug called sulfanilamide was found to protect people from fatal bacterial infections such as pneumococcus."
• "The result was that we had an inordinately high number of crashes as time went on, and sulfanilamide an early antibiotic could be bought on the streets of Kunming while Chinese troops in the field were dying of infection."
• "Examples include: severe toxicity from the use of arsenic to treat syphilis deaths from a solvent (ethylene glycol) used in sulfanilamide preparations (one of the first antibiotics) thousands of children born with severe birth defects resulting from pregnant women using thalidomide, an anti-nausea medicine"