Antibiotics – Dummies Guide
What is an Antibiotic?
An antibiotic is a substance created by one organism that has the properties to destroy another organism. It can be used to kill the organisms that carry diseases and infections.
When did scientists start looking for them?
After Louis Pasteur’s Germ Theory became accepted it was clear that Germa were the cause of disease and scientists started looking for ways of preventing these diseases (through vaccinations) and of stopping infections. There were experiments from the 1870’s onwards that looked at how effective different moulds were in fighting infection. Hoewever the ideas in that period were not particularly successful.
Who made the breakthrough?
In 1928 a Scientist called Alexander Fleming noticed that a mould called Penicillin was effective at killing the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus. However he didn’t really do much the discovery. It wasn’t until the 1940’s that the discovery was worked on and Penicillin was mass prodiced at an affordable price. Fleming’s had been a chance discovery, the development of Penicillin was due to team work led by Ernst Florey and Howard Chain with significant investment in the development of the drug coming from the US government as a result of the forthcoming D Day landings.
What other antibiotics are there?
Even though Penicillin was discovered first, it wasn’t the first antibiotic to be made available to the public. That was Prontosil, the first ‘Magic Bulet’ which was developed by a German Scientist called Gerhard Domagk in 1935. Other antibiotics include Streptomycin, Amoxicillin and Nystatin.
Are antibiotics a wonder drug?
Antibiotics are very good at killing infections. However the bugs that they are designed to kill have fought back and there are examples of ’superbugs’ which have developed resistance to antibiotics. In hospitals you will hear about the need for cleanliness to stop the spread of MRSA (Multi Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus). This infection can’t yet be killed off and is the result of bugs mutating to avoid being killed by the antibiotics that are currently available.
