Penicillin

A detailed Summary of Penicillin


Penicillin: The Bacterial Cell Killer

Before the discovery of penicillin, bacteria-caused diseases took a heavy toll on the world population. During the 1800's there were only limited ideas about how diseases were generated in the human body. Two men, Pasteur and Koch, had clearly shown the connection between disease and bacteria, but not many people believed in the work they were doing. (Brown, 1996, P.1).

Around the late 1850's, a few people were beginning to take seriously the idea that diseases were caused by unseen things. A twenty-one year old medical student in France made a chance discovery that a substance produced by a mold could apparently kill bacteria. This medical student was Ernest Duchesne. This work was mainly ignored, and eventually forgotten. (Brown, 1996, P.1).

In 1928 penicillin was accidentally discovered by Dr. Alexander Flemming at St. Mary's Hospital in London. Dr. Flemming had been workin


Even though the efforts and resources of many people were used to try and produce large quantities of penicillin, it soon became obvious that Flemming's original culture would not be able to produce enough penicillin needed for the demand. It was known that there were many species of penicillin. A search was started to find other species that could be tested for penicillin production. One was eventually found on a moldy cantaloupe in a market in Peoria, Illinois. This new species was identified as Penicillium chrysogeum and this species is currently used to produce penicillin today. (Wong, 1998, P.21)

While penicillin is still widely used, many strains of bacteria have grown resistant to the drug. During the time Flemming was working to perfect penicillin, he made a prediction eventually penicillin would have limited value, because bacteria would eventually recombine genetically to resist the effect of penicillin. Becau

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Category: Science

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