Antibiotics

Antibiotics these wonder drugs are one of medicine’s most important weapons in the fight against disease-causing bacteria. But the first antibiotic was discovered entirely by accident.

Fleming had chanced upon the first antibiotic, but isolating penicillin in quantities large enough to treat people took more than a decade. A team in Oxford, England, led by Australian scientist Howard Florey used hospital bedpans and cow-milking equipment to produce enough penicillin to run medical trials on humans in 1941. Stopping DISEASES in their tracks They proved successful in fighting a range of infections and diseases. Ernst Chain proved penicillin’s success in fighting bacteria in mammals through experiments with mice. By the way... I was a key member of Howard Florey’s team. Along with Florey and Alexander Fleming, I was awarded the 1945 Nobel Prize for Medicine.

Fleming’s fluke

By the 19th century, scientists had figured out that many diseases are caused by microscopic living things called bacteria. In 1928, Scottish bacteriologist alexander Fleming noticed that one of his petri dishes containing Staphylococcus bacteria had become contaminated with a blue mold, which seemed to have wiped out the bacteria. Fleming realized that the mold contained a bacteria-killing chemical, which he called penicillin.

It paved the way for...

Streptomycin was first made in 1943 by American scientist Selman WakSman from bacteria found in soil. It was the first antibiotic remedy for tuberculosis. tetracycline was first discovered in 1945 and then made in labs by American drug company Pfizer in the early 1950s. It

Florey’s successful trials led

American drug companies to start producing the drug in large quantities. The first stocks of penicillin were sent to help soldiers wounded in World War ii, and dramatically reduced the number of deaths from infected wounds. After the war, the new drug was in demand to combat diseases such as pneumonia, scarlet fever, gangrene, and diphtheria.

Howard Florey worked with drug companies in the US to produce large quantities of penicillin. Vials of penicillin were packed along with other battlefield medicines to treat wounded soldiers during World War II.

Amazing antivirals

Viruses are different from bacteria. They invade healthy cells and force them to copy the virus so that it spreads. Gertrude B. elion was an American chemist who developed the first widely available antiviral drug, acyclovir, in the 1970s. It was used to treat the herpes virus, which causes cold sores. She later came out of retirement to help create AZT, the first anti-HIV drug.

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patented the antibiotic nystatin in 1957. It is used to fight fungal infections. The discovery of penicillin saved millions of lives, but it also led to a revolution in the development of new drugs, with many more antibiotics following in its wake. Along with antivirals, these drugs have provided safe treatments for countless conditions. How it changed the world