Antibiotics

Antibiotics were one of the most remarkable inventions of the 20th century such as the
internet, the radio, the automobile, the airplane and the television.
The ancient Egyptians, the Chinese, and Indians of Central America all used molds to
treat infected wounds. However, they did not understand the connection of the
antibacterial properties of mold and the treatment of diseases.
The search for antibiotics began in the late 1800s, with the growing acceptance of
the germ theory of disease, a theory which linked bacteria and other microbes to the
causation of a variety of ailments. As a result, scientists began to devote time to
searching for drugs that would kill these bacteria.
In 1928, Professor Alexander Fleming, a bacteriologist working at St Marys Hospital
in London, accidentally discovered Penicillin. It was the first of the antibiotics, but
failed to stabilize the substance because its qualities lasted for only a few days.
Later, in 1940, an Australian pathologist, Howard Florey, and a German chemist, Ernst
Chain, achieved the stabilization of Penicillin. Penicillin could now be sold as a drug.
Fleming, Florey, and Chain shared the 1945 Nobel Prize for medicine for their work on
penicillin.
Over the years, new antibiotics were discovered, so death due to bacterial infections
became rare, resulting in a greatly reduced mortality rate. The invention of antibiotic
has proved to be the miracle drug for which the medical world of that time was
hoping for. It has saved many lives, especially during the World War Two for treatment
on soldiers.