Penicillin

518 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Penicillin in pharmacology

Penicillin was accidentally discovered at St. Mary's Hospital, London in 1929 by Dr. Alexander Fleming. As test continued, Fleming began to realize that he was on the verge of a great discovery. However, he still did not know the identity of the fungus, and had little knowledge of fungi. His crude extracts could be diluted 1,000 times and still be effective in killing bacteria. After years of working on penicillin and going nowhere, many of his co-workers grew tired of hearing about it. The first real test for penicillin came when a 48-year-old police officer nicked himself shaving. After a time, Alexander's face became infected and he developed a temperature. When he was rushed to the hospital, the doctors believed that he had only hours to live. Then Dr Fleming and his crew started to treat this patient. This was the first person that penicillin was used on. After five days, he was getting better. Unfortunately, because it was in such short supply, it had to be extracted from his urine, and the penicillin had been used up. The police officer died five days later. Their next attempt was successful. It involved a punctured eye. The stone was still in the eye, and normally the eye would have been amputated, but penicillin allowed the man to make a full recovery. By this time, it was now 1941, it was now acknowledged that penicillin was indeed a worthwhile drug and could save thousands of lives.
During World War I, death rate from pneumonia in th...

Show More
Related

  • The Factor of War in the Development of Penicillin

    529 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Factor of War in the Development of Penicillin The discovery, development and subsequent use of penicillin can be considered to be one of the most important breakthroughs in medical history. There were many factors, which were involved in the development of penicillin, and it could be argued that war was the most important, but other factors were also responsible. Alexander Fleming was working in London as a bacteriologist in 1928 when he noticed that a growth of a mould called penicillin produced a substance that actually killed the germs he was working on. He realised that this might be very important and a year later he wrote an article about his findings. However, Fleming did not have the facilities or the support to develop and test his idea that penicillin could fight infection, and he didn't develop it further.

    Read More

  • Annotated Bibliography on Antibiotic

    1077 Words  | 3 Pages

    Adegoke AA, Tom M, Okoh AI, Jacob S (2010) Studies on multiple antibiotic resistant bacterial isolated from surgical site infection. Scient Res. Essays 5:3876-81.

    Read More

  • Risperdal

    1552 Words  | 4 Pages

    Risperdal Risperidone is an atypical antipsychotic used to alleviate the symptoms of schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is defined by its effects in altering perception, thoughts, or consciousness called hallucinations or delusions. It affects about 1% of the population, with about 2 million people affected in the United States. About 50% of those affected become severely and permanently disabled and dependent upon public assistance. Schizophrenics make up about 10% of the totally disabled population and as much as 14% of the homeless.

    Read More

  • Tobramycin

    679 Words  | 2 Pages

    Tobramycin (Tobi, Tobrex) is an Aminoglycoside broad-spectrum antibiotic. It is effective against “gram-negative bacillary infections, and infections caused by staphylococci when penicillin or other less toxic drugs are contraindicated.” (Vallerand, Sanoski, & Deglin, 2013, p.131) Tobramycin is commonly inhaled to manage the bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa in patients with Cystic fibrosis.

    Read More

  • The Medical Advances of World War I

    652 Words  | 2 Pages

    Years later other scientists were also intrigued by the possibilities of penicillin and produced enough penicillin to prove that it was a useable antibiotic. The scientists from Great Britain were developing all of this during World War II, and unfortunately funding for their drug was unavailable due to the war. They decided to bring their concepts to the United States, and once enough was made, it was eventually used, to treat wounded soldiers during World War I.

    Read More

  • Acetaminophen

    430 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the late 1800’s it was discovered that papa-amino-phenol, could reduce fever, but the drug was too toxic to use. A less toxic extract called phenacetin was later found to be just as effective but also had pain-relieving properties. In 1949, it was learned that phenacetin was metabolized into an active but also less toxic drug, acetaminophen. Since then, acetaminophen has been sold under many over the counter brand names, most popular being Tylenol.

    Read More

  • Penicillin And Insulin In The 1920's

    1076 Words  | 3 Pages

    The decade between 1920 and 1930 was a milestone for many health breakthroughs. The work that was done in the 1920’s had a major impact in increasing overall life expectancy. Penicillin and insulin are an easy fix for sore throats and diabetes, respectively.

    Read More

  • The History Of Penicillin

    1522 Words  | 4 Pages

    18). Even though those diseases were not his goal to cure it still made penicillin revolutionary for the time being. Fleming now knew how to make penicillin and started to mass produce it. In the 1930s during the upgrading process of penicillin Fleming himself was cured of severe conjunctivitis. Then in the 1940s the fully developed penicillin was created. The creation of penicillin cured a wide variety of diseases, which led to the world excelling in growth, and penicillin improved the way of medicine at the time. The variety of diseases cured by penicillin made it a must have antibiotic. Penicillin was used to cure multiple diseases including syphilis, gonorrhea, tuberculosis, gangrene, pneumonia, diphtheria, and scarlet fever ( Common Antibiotics ). All the diseases have one thing in common, they all have the ability to spread, some faster than others. When a disease is discovered people tried to make a cure. When penicillin was made diseases that were thought to never have a cure were cured. People began to demand that penicillin be sold in local pharmacies. Penicillin was released to help people with the variety of diseases curable by

    Read More

  • Antibiotics Essay

    1042 Words  | 3 Pages

    Ernest Chain and Howard Florey with the knowledge of Flemings work were able to successfully purify an extract of penicillin for testing. The tested it in 1940 on mice, they concluded that those who were given the penicillin lived whereas the others did not. Later in 1945 all three men received the Nobel Prize for their contr...

    Read More

  • Antibiotic Resistance And Its Factors: The Use Of Antibiotics

    1393 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Center for Disease Control (CDC) said, “Each year in the United States, at least two million people become infected with bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics and at least twenty-three thousand people die each year as a direct result of these infections.” (Threat Report 2013) Antibiotics were created to kill bacteria; since they were created, the bacteria have started to become resistant to the antibiotics. Antibiotic resistance is the ability of a microorganism to withstand the effects of an antibiotic. Because of this resistance, I believe that the use of antibiotics have been proven to be more harmful to human health than helpful.

    Read More

  • World War II: How Penicillin Saved American Life

    1039 Words  | 3 Pages

    Penicillin, derived from the mold Penicillium, is the first antibiotic to successfully treat bacterial infections on humans. It was accidentally discovered by scientist, Alexander Fleming. While Fleming was growing Staphylococcus, a serious and often deadly infection, in a dish, he noticed the bacteria had stopped growing after a mold found its way

    Read More

  • Antibiotic Antibiotics

    553 Words  | 2 Pages

    Antibiotics have been vital tools in the fight against bacterial infections, however their effectiveness has waned in recent times due to the advent of antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria. According to a review by P, the uses of antibiotics, as well as influences from the environment have allowed such bacterial strains to respond to changes in their environment rapidly, and so develop resistance. This acquired ability can have serious and broad implications in the medical field, evident in a study by O into the resistance of intestinal Staphylococcus aureus.

    Read More

  • Alexander Fleming: The Discovery of Penicillin

    1895 Words  | 4 Pages

    Discovery and Development of Penicillin. (2014, April 4). Retrieved from American Chemical Society International Historic Chemical Landmarks: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/flemingpenicillin.html

    Read More

  • The Overuse of Antibiotics

    3053 Words  | 7 Pages

    Thesis: With the advent of antibiotics in 1929 Fleming said, "The time may come when penicillin can be bought by anyone in the shops.Then there is the danger that the ignorant man may easily underdose himself and by exposing his microbes to non-lethal quantities of the drug make them resistant."With the overuse of antibiotics today we have seen this very idea come to be.Over usage is caused most prevalently by a lack of education on the part of the patient.Thus stated, the way to overcome such a circumstance is to educate, not only the patient but also the physician.

    Read More

  • The Discovery of Antibiotics by Alexander Fleming

    3182 Words  | 7 Pages

    The discovery of antibiotics is attributed to Alexander Fleming who discovered the first antibiotic to be commercially used (Penicillin) in approximately 1928. An antibiotic, also known as an antimicrobial, is a medication that is taken in order to either destroy or slow the growth rate of bacteria. Antibiotics are integral to the success of many medical practises, such as; surgical procedures, organ transplants, the treatment of cancer and the treatment of the critically ill. (Ramanan Laxminarayan, 2013)

    Read More

More about Penicillin

Open Document