Penicillin
Penicillin was first believed to have been discovered by a man named Sir Alexander Fleming in 1928, but it didn't end there. Many other men came after, refining the basic idea (as many other products have been) like Sir Howard Florey who transformed basic penicillin into a clinical medicine in 1941. But Penicillin still made a big name for itself during the Second World War.
Penicillin was such an amazing asset to the allied troops in war hospitals because of all the infections the drug could stop in humans and all the lives it saved in the process. Penicillin also helped shape the way of modern medicine. If we didn't have Penicillin, the entire course of modern medicine would be so much different than it is today. So many other -- different and often stronger -- antibiotics owe their very existence today to the discovery and medical use of penicillin.
Penicillin was such an amazing asset to the allied troops in war hospitals because of all the infections the drug could stop in humans and all the lives it saved in the process. Penicillin also helped shape the way of modern medicine. If we didn't have Penicillin, the entire course of modern medicine would be so much different than it is today. So many other -- different and often stronger -- antibiotics owe their very existence today to the discovery and medical use of penicillin.
The start
Molds are kinds of plants or fungi, but they are like mushrooms rather than like the grasses and garden plants. The main difference is that they do not produce seeds in little pods like peas but instead release a kind of floating seed called "spores," tiny dust-like particles too small to be seen by the naked eye. These float away from the parent molds until they find some place were hey can grow, flourish, and thrive. This is the basics of what penicillin is made up of.
Molds are kinds of plants or fungi, but they are like mushrooms rather than like the grasses and garden plants. The main difference is that they do not produce seeds in little pods like peas but instead release a kind of floating seed called "spores," tiny dust-like particles too small to be seen by the naked eye. These float away from the parent molds until they find some place were hey can grow, flourish, and thrive. This is the basics of what penicillin is made up of.
The effort put into trying to synthesize penicillin into an effective medicine during World War II was one of the most intensive undertakings in the history of the medicine. Without the natural fermentation process that scientists successfully used to create penicillin, this remarkable drug would never have been come into being. It is the story of many frustrating complications that led, ultimately, to the development of a family of antibiotics in the 1950s and 1960s.
After WW2, academic chemist John C. Sheehan at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who had earlier been involved at Merck and Company in New Jersey with the development of the antibiotic streptomycin and vitamin B6, took the challenge of producing a chemical synthesis of penicillin. He determined that penicillin could be synthesized by a rational chemical process but not by any of the known techniques at the time. These developments are a large part of the way penicillin changed the history of the medical world.