Antibiotic Penicillin

Nowadays use of the penicillin and other antibiotics is seen very commonly. Various antibiotics such as penicillin are available to treat majority of common diseases, when our barrier to fight off these diseases, skin is passed through by bacteria and viruses due to a minor cut or a larger wound, many antibiotics in the antibiotics list prevent the spreading of these diseases. This is taken for granted by almost every person in the world. However the antibiotics in the long antibiotic list, that are used to treat common diseases, most common one being penicillin, have not always been available. Majority of antibiotics in the antibiotics list, such a penicillin have been recently discovered towards the mid of the 1900s in early 1940s with the first practical antibiotic being penicillin. Even the use of fungal products to produce medicine is a relatively recent one and penicillin is an important one of these fungal products. However before the discovery of penicillin and other antibiotics in the antibiotics list,  many traditional treatments that made use of fungi have been used for a long time without being aware of the incorporation of fungi to therapy wan unintentional and not known. For instance, over a thousand years ago, the Chinese made use of seedy soy bean curd to treat swellings and many other types of skin infections.  Some other cultures used warm soil as first aid treatment that contained molds and other fungi. The presence of antibiotics in soybean curd and soil that was placed on injuries is certainly true. Although the use of antibiotics such as penicillin is fairly recent; it has been around unintentionally for many years in the past.

The discovery of the penicillin out of many other antibiotics from the long antibiotics list has always been considered as a miracle and everything said about penicillin, as well as other antibiotics in the antibiotic list, is completely true.

It is quiet expected that many people are familiar with the discover story of penicillin.  Majority of text books written on life science, the story revolves around the accidently discovered antibiotic, one of the best antibiotics out of the long antibiotics list, penicillin, by Dr Alexander Fleming, at St Mary’s Hospital in London. Fleming, while examining a pathogenic bacterium, culture of Staphylococcus aureus, on which he was carrying out some research, he noticed that the contamination that had occurred by a species of Penicillium. Even though the mold species was unfamiliar to Fleming, his observations showed the inhibition of bacterial growth. The findings were written on a paper by Fleming in 1929 and some luck is certainly involved in this amazing discovery. Fleming, throughout his life, unlike his successful penicillin discovery suggest, did not had a desire to become a doctor however his start in bacteriological medicine came from an unexpected set of events. 1900 was the year, when Fleming and his two brothers joined a Scottish troop due to the war between England and colonies in Southern Africa, which unexpectedly turned out to be less dangerous than what they had expected because they were put in a country club environment. Shooting, swimming and playing water polo was how they spent their time and after the war Fleming had returned home to find out that his uncle had died and left him and his brothers a large inheritance. Eldest brother who was a successful doctor, Tom, probably had seen the remarkable penicillin discovery Fleming could make and advised Fleming to join a medical school and to invest his money on his career. High examination marks enabled him to choose from three medical schools. However he knew not much about these schools and he decided to choose St Mary's hospital as it was familiar to him from a water polo he had to play against them without having any idea of the best antibiotics discovery out of the long antibiotics list, penicillin. Graduation has leaded Fleming to training to become a surgeon and late two options of leaving St Mary's by taking a position as a surgeon or joining the Inoculation Service and staying at St Mary's and a great influence has been  by captain of St Mary's rifle club who was anxious to make his team better. He tried very hard to make Fleming stay at St Mary’s as he knew that he was very successful. The captain successfully persuaded Fleming to stay without knowing that he would make a remarkable invention of penicillin top of the antibiotics list and Fleming stayed at St Mary's during whole of his career.