The History of Penicillin
Even though molds and fungi have been used since ancient times, it wasn't until the mid-1900s that scientists isolated the specific strain of penicillium that is used today for mass production. The isolation and distribution of penicillin might have occurred sooner had it not been for the discovery that specific bacteria caused specific illnesses. The use of penicillin to inhibit the growth of bacteria has a rich and fascinating history, and is one of the most important medical breakthroughs in human history.
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Ancient Antibiotics
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The idea of using fungal matter for its antibiotic properties dates to ancient times when warm earth was used as a compress for skin conditions. The ancient Chinese used moldy soybean curds to treat boils and lacerations. There's even evidence that ancient Europeans used cheese mold enzymes and other forms of fermented organic matter to treat infection. The medicinal properties of mold, however, weren't fully discovered until much later.
1870-1874
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In 1870, Sir John Scott Burdon-Sanderson, a lecturer at St. Mary's Hospital in England, observed that culture fluid covered with mold would not produce bacteria. The following year, inspired by Burdon-Sanderson's observations, English surgeon Joseph Lister recorded that urine samples contaminated with mold didn't grow bacteria, and even described penicillium glaucum as having antibacterial properties on human tissue. Lister used the penicillium to treat the wounds of a King's College nurse who was unresponsive to the antiseptic treatments that were popular in the time. Dr. William Roberts, a physician in Manchester, England, isolated penicillium glaucum for the first time and noted that several forms of bacteria would not grow in its presence.
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The Typing of Bacteria
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It was in 1875 that researchers and physicians accepted that specific strains of bacteria would cause specific illnesses. For several years, the classifying and naming of bacteria, associating each with specific illnesses was an important task. The bacteria that caused anthrax, bacillus anthracis, was the first confirmed and agreed upon proof of this theory. It occurred in the same year that Joseph Tyndall demonstrated the antibacterial activity of the penicillium fungus to the Royal Society.
Louis Pasteur
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In 1877, Louis Pasteur and Jules Francois Joubert identified penicillium notatum in the inhibition of anthrax bacilli. Unfortunately, not many scientists understood how to use that research. It didn't help matters that in 1895, when the Italian Vicenzo Tiberio of Naples injected an extract of penicillium mold into the bloodstream of virulent animals, the results were inconclusive. Two years later in France, Ernest Duchesne, a teacher at the Army Medical Academy, observed stable boys using slices of moldy bread to treat skin infections in horses. But the results were inconsistent because different strains of penicillium were used, some of which weren't effective, making the treatment look as though it had a spotty success rate. He published a dissertation about his successful treatment of typhoid via injected penicillium, but it was ignored.
Mass Production of Penicillin
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Penicillin wasn't isolated and produced in large quantities until the 1940s when the NRRL (Northern Regional Research Laboratories) were able to isolate strains of penicillium that yielded higher amounts of the extract, penicillin. By 1944, scientists at Pfizer developed a method of fermentation that was finally able to produce large enough quantities of pharmaceutical grade penicillin that it could be used by physicians regularly and surely.
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