Essay On Penicillin

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Penicillin-The discovery that changed the world, but for how long? Accidents can often turn positive, or in some cases, they can even become revolutionary. The discovery of Penicillin changed the world immensely and it was all due to an accident one day in the lab. Penicillin changed the history of medicine for the better, saving millions of lives since its discovery. Even today, it is used by millions daily, from prescriptions from the pharmacy to life saving drugs in the hospital. However, unless something changes in the near future, history could soon reverse, and the power of penicillin could soon be diminished. Prior to the discovery of penicillin, the only available treatments for bacterial infections were all highly toxic; arsenic, …show more content…

Some of the bacteria that antibiotics treat are actually becoming resistant to the antibiotics meaning they lose all power. Without the power of antibiotics, these infections cannot be treated, which is proving to be a huge issue, as it’s spreading fast. Currently 700,000 have died from antibiotic resistance, which is a lot higher than the statistics for deaths caused by measles, cholera and tetanus combined. This is showing that already, it has already caused a lot of damage, and it continues to spread.(Walsh, 2014) Antibiotic resistance can spread in various ways, stemming from the bottom of the food chain to other human beings. Crops can be sprayed with water or fertiliser which contain drug resistant bacteria. These crops can be eaten by humans, transmitting the resistant bacteria and it can also be spread to crop-eating animals which some humans also consume, also spreading the resistant bacteria. The drug resistant bacteria are then transmitted among humans, from hospital environments to even in the local community, meaning nobody is immune to getting it. (CDC Office of Infectious Diseases (OID), …show more content…

2017. The Discovery of Penicillin—New Insights After More Than 75 Years of Clinical Use. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 23: 849-853. Kardos, N. & Demain. A. L. 2011. Penicillin: the medicine with the greatest impact on therapeutic outcomes. Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, 92: 677-687. Gale, T. (1997). [online] Available at: http://www.encyclopedia.com/medicine/medical-journals/penicillin [Accessed 27 Oct. 2017]. Walsh, F. (2014). Superbugs to kill 'more than cancer'. [online] BBC News. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-30416844 [Accessed 20 Oct. 2017]. Hoyert DL, Kochanek KD, Murphy SL. Hyattsville, Maryland: US Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, CDC, National Center for Health Statistics, (1999). Deaths: final data for 1997. National Vitaln statistics reports. (vol. 47 no.19.) CDC Office of Infectious Diseases (OID) (2013). Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the United States. [online] p.15. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/threat-report-2013/pdf/ar-threats-2013-508.pdf#page=5 [Accessed 17 Oct.

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