History of Antibiotics

Although the antibiotics have only made their impact felt in medicine within the last four decades the phenomenon of antibiosis itself has been known for more than a century.

An antibiotic is a biological substance (either synthetic or natural) that kills or inhibits the growth of microorganism, usually bacteria. Most antibiotics are made from bacteria and fungi, but an increasing number are made synthetically from chemical compounds.

They are relatively harmless to the hosts; hence they are prescribed widely for infections.

However, there is growing concern that antibiotic over prescription and their existence used in food animals is leading to antibiotic resistance and the inability of the human immune system to fend off infection.

Although there is debate in the scientific community about who discovered antibiotics, most historians credit scientist Alexander Fleming with the discovery of penicillin in 1928.

This breakthrough provided the first effective countermeasure against bacteria that cause diseases such as gonorrhea, meningitis, diphtheria and pneumonia.

At the time, Fleming beloved penicillin could be used as a disinfectant as he did not believed it could last long enough in the human body to kill pathogens.

On February 1941, Robert Alexander was the first patient in the world to receive penicillin. Alexander was seriously ill with a staphylococcal infection that started with a small sore at the corner of his mouth.

Before that Louis Pasteur may have been the first to clearly suggest that the antagonism between microbes might have therapeutics potential.

In 1877, he noticed that urine, which is normally an excellent culture medium for the anthrax bacillus, would not support the growth of this organism of the urine were also inoculated with common aerobic bacteria.

He interpreted this mean that there was a struggle for existence between various kinds of microbes, just as between plants and higher animals and that one microorganism might successfully prevent the multiplication of another.

Today, more than 100 different antibiotics exist that are able to cure anything from minor discomforts to life threatening infections.
History of Antibiotics