Wiki tells that penicillin was discovered by Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming in 1928. Legend has that Europeans had learned to use moldy bread in the Middle Ages as a medicine. Fleming did not discover penicillin from bread though, it was from a contaminated petri dish that showed staphylococcus avoiding a blue-green mold. The antibiotic was named penicillin from the Penicillium mold.
Manufacturing technology for the antibiotic was hastened by World War II, when it was recognized that penicillin could reduce deaths and amputations. In June 1942, there was only penicillin sufficient for ten patients. By the time of the Normandy landing in 1944, it was being mass produced.
How penicillin kills bacteria explains the antibiotic interferes with the ability to generate a cell wall. The bacteria lengthen, but eventually the cell wall collapses. Some bacteria defend themselves against penicillin by producing penicillinase, an enzyme that consumes penicillin. Antibiotic resistance: A problem that's here to stay tells that by the 1950s, penicillin-resistant staphylococcus was multiplying. Since bacterial organisms are so numerous and reproduce so quickly, it is inevitable that resistance to any drug will someday occur. We need to more careful in antibiotic usage so that we do not unnecessarily accelerate resistance development. It is also going to require continued research and development of new antibiotics.
There are many variants of penicillin. Penicillin G for example, is so unstable, that it would not survive the digestive juices of our stomachs. Penicillin V is the generic most often prescribed today. Shot in arm for economy, penicllin use explains that many people wrongly believe they are allergic to the drug. Still 15 to 20 percent of the population is allergic to penicillin. The skin test that effective in determining an allergy to penicllin is no longer manufactured. The result is that patients are then prescribed more powerful and consequently more toxic antibiotics.
Comments