The Scientific Basis of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy

This volume surveys some of the most recent developments in antimicrobial chemotherapy and emphasises our increasing knowledge of how these compounds exert their effects. It is 18 years since the Society for General Microbiology published a symposium volume devoted specifically to antimicrobial agents. Since then many new compounds have been described and marketed and enormous strides have been made in our understanding of the mode of action of antimicrobial compounds. This volume reflects these advances in the areas of cell wall active antibiotics, inhibitors of bacterial protein synthesis, antibacterial quinolones, antiprotozoal, antifungal and antiviral agents, antibiotic resistance, drug design and production, novel in vitro methods, and ways of supporting chemotherapeutic attack. Although antimicrobial agents are used for many purposes outside human therapy - and the book is sufficiently general to be of interest to workers in these other fields - the emphasis is on agents and issues that impinge on the clinical use of these drugs, so as to maintain a pragmatic perspective for the flights of high science that so easily tend otherwise to leave practical considerations behind.