|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
PENICILLIN
Inventor: Sir Alexander Fleming
Florey played a major role in the large-scale production of penicillin in the U.S. in the early 1940s, and by D-Day, enough penicillin was on hand to treat every soldier that needed it. Penicillin had a major effect; many bacterial diseases that were formerly fatal, including scarlet fever, pneumonia, diphtheria, and childbirth infections became treatable. However, there was one problem with penicillin, which Fleming realized. "The administration of too small doses ... leads to the production of resistant strains of bacteria," which is still an issue with today’s antibiotics. Picture from Encarta Encyclopedia. Sources: "Alexander Fleming." The Time 100. Time. 29 March 1999. Available 10 April 2004. <http://www.time.com/time/time100/scientist/profile/fleming.html>
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
Last Updated:
04/24/2004
Webmasters: George Kannarkat, David Bao
Website design by: George Kannarkat, David Bao, Sri Gopalan, Vanessa Furman,
Sandra Kim, Robert Moffatt, Alex MacKay, and Ian Buchanan
© 2003 All Rights Reserved
The discovery of penicillin was pure luck. Fleming had a plate of
Staphylococcus bacteria sitting out for two weeks, and did not know that it
was contaminated with a spore of Penicillium notatum. When he returned,
there was an area on the plate with a clear halo in the yellow-green growth
of the bacteria surrounding the area of the Penicillium notatum mold. He
realized that penicillin had the promise of killing bacteria, but it did not
come into use until a team of scientists at Oxford, headed by Howard Florey
and included chemist Ernst Boris Chain, isolated penicillin and experimented
on mice.