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Before and after the discovery of penicillin essay
Before and after the discovery of penicillin essay
Before and after the discovery of penicillin essay
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Imagine one day you find out that you have syphilis or a really bad respiratory infection. Most doctors would give you some doses of the wonder drug, penicillin, to fight the contagious infection. But does penicillin really help us? The discovery of this drug was totally accidental. It was a new mold that had contaminated petri dishes on a September day in 1928. Yes, penicillin has saved lives and limbs, but many people have suffered the traumatizing side effects of this antibiotic.
Penicillin can be harmful even in small doses. A healthy young 65 year old woman wrote a review for this drug, she was given penicillin to prevent infection from a tooth extraction. She wrote: ¨It caused stomach discomfort that lasted for weeks after I stopped the med. I stopped it early as advised by the dentist....” (webMD).The painful stomach discomfort seemed to last weeks after she stopped taking this drug. Another patient what was
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But there also has been many cases of people dying because penicillin helps the bacteria adapt better in bad conditions. A review was found on the Internet: “The infection will come back harder and stronger worse than ever the first time...” (webMD). This is proof that penicillin can make the infection tolerate stronger drugs. Penicillin has also damaged people because it can also be obtained without prescription. “In the United States, there are 4 ways to obtain antibiotics without a prescription: buy them in a pet store, drive down to Mexico, buy them in an ethnic market store or buy them on the Internet...” (InternetDrugNews.com). For example, improper use of this drug can unbalance yeast in the mouth causing a condition known as “black hairy tongue”. Because people didn’t buy with a prescription, they didn’t get the proper directions on how to take the antibiotic. There is proof that the drug penicillin can sometimes help clear up infections, but can also help the bacteria get
The Factor of War in the Development of Penicillin The discovery, development and subsequent use of penicillin can be considered to be one of the most important breakthroughs in medical history. There were many factors, which were involved in the development of penicillin, and it could be argued that war was the most important, but other factors were also responsible. Alexander Fleming was working in London as a bacteriologist in 1928 when he noticed that a growth of a mould called penicillin produced a substance that actually killed the germs he was working on. He realised that this might be very important and a year later he wrote an article about his findings. However, Fleming did not have the facilities or the support to develop and test his idea that penicillin could fight infection, and he didn't develop it further.
Adegoke AA, Tom M, Okoh AI, Jacob S (2010) Studies on multiple antibiotic resistant bacterial isolated from surgical site infection. Scient Res. Essays 5:3876-81.
It kills bacteria by competing with it for food, The bacteria around the fungus are destroyed as penicillin is released. The penicillin kills the mold by stopping its cell walls from forming. This results in the cells bursting and dying (Ward, 50-51). During World War II, penicillin was used in place of surgery due to the lack of doctors. The drug obviated the need for many amputations because it could neutralize the bacteria that caused dead tissue responsible for limb removals (Conniff, 2013). A letter sent home from a soldier, Murphy, demonstrates an example of this. “At first they thought they would have the take his leg off… it was long before they really could treat him… But they started treating him with the new ‘wonder drug’ penicillin and it brought him around ok” (Higginbotham, 2001). In addition to eliminating amputations, penicillin made infections less painful to handle. Surgeons commonly treated wounds by draining them and leaving them open to heal. Infections were common and often deadly, recovery wound take months. However, after the distribution of penicillin, surgeons simply drained the wound, sprinkled penicillin powder, and stitched the wound close (Conniff, 2013). Thousands of soldiers who escaped death or amputation owed their well-being to the mass production of
In the last decade, the number of prescriptions for antibiotics has increases. Even though, antibiotics are helpful, an excess amount of antibiotics can be dangerous. Quite often antibiotics are wrongly prescribed to cure viruses when they are meant to target bacteria. Antibiotics are a type of medicine that is prone to kill microorganisms, or bacteria. By examining the PBS documentary Hunting the Nightmare Bacteria and the article “U.S. government taps GlaxoSmithKline for New Antibiotics” by Ben Hirschler as well as a few other articles can help depict the problem that is of doctors prescribing antibiotics wrongly or excessively, which can led to becoming harmful to the body.
Resistance arises from mutations that are not under the control of humans, but the evolution of bacteria has been sped along by the overexposure of antibiotics to both people and animals. The number of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria in an area is closely related to the frequency that antibiotics that are prescribed (Todar, 2012). Patients often unnecessarily demand antibiotics to treat common colds or simple illnesses that are not caused by bacteria. Instead, these infections are caused by viruses which, unlike bacteria, are unaffected by antibiotics. Incorrect diagnosis can also lead patients to using unnecessary antibiotics, which can sometimes be even more dangerous than otherwise left untreated. Besides the fact that antibiotics kill off beneficial bacteria in the intestines, misuse of antibiotics provides an opportunity ...
Fleming reasoned that the fact that it killed the bacteria in the lab, that it could also be used to kill bacteria in humans, but after attempting and failing to grow more penicillin, he eventually gave up on the idea.
According to USA Today, U.S. doctors are prescribing enough antibiotics to give to 4 out of 5 Americans every year, an alarming pace that suggests they are being excruciatingly overused. In fact, Dr. Aunna Pourang from MD states, “to give you an idea of how high the pressure is to prescribe antibiotics, I didn’t get a job once because during the interview I told the lead physician that I only prescribe antibiotic prescriptions when they are warranted.” The development and widespread obsession of antibiotics, or drugs that kill bacteria and thereby reduce infection, has helped billions of people live longer, healthier lives. Unfortunately, the more we rely on and abuse antibiotics, the more bacteria develop resistance to them, which makes treating infections that much more challenging and leads to the growth of drug-resistant strains of bacteria. Research from the Center of Disease Control found that two million people in the United States become infected with antibiotic resistant bacteria, while 23,000 people die from such infections each year. Americans often aren’t informed on the power of the human body and rush to assumptions when perfection isn’t present. In a nutshell, the obsession of antibiotics is quite deadly and needs to be addressed before it’s too
The natural components of antibiotics have been used as local remedies long before humans understood the reasons why these sometimes-radical treatments worked. Penicillin became the first manufactured antibiotic after physician Alexander Fleming published articles regarding this bacteria-disabling mold in 1928. Come 1932, penicillin was commonly used to treat infected war injuries, saving the lives of unnumbered soldiers (Lewis). Since then, penicillin has b...
Penicillin is the reason people lived healthy and long lives. Sick, cold, and sore, are feelings people have when they are sick. If people were to become sick and penicillin was not around they would have those feelings for a longer duration. Penicillin was an idea that belonged to a famous scientist by the name of Sir Alexander Fleming. Penicillin was just the slightest of idea in Fleming’s mind after he married his wife who had the profession of a nurse. Fleming made penicillin after conducting test on accidentally infected fungus inhabited plates. He tried washing the fungus of with disinfectant, then he noticed a yellow-green zone around the fungus. He came up with the conclusion that penicillin’s main goal would be to eliminate the outer weak ring
Thesis: With the advent of antibiotics in 1929 Fleming said, "The time may come when penicillin can be bought by anyone in the shops.Then there is the danger that the ignorant man may easily underdose himself and by exposing his microbes to non-lethal quantities of the drug make them resistant."With the overuse of antibiotics today we have seen this very idea come to be.Over usage is caused most prevalently by a lack of education on the part of the patient.Thus stated, the way to overcome such a circumstance is to educate, not only the patient but also the physician.
The advent of penicillin forever changed the world of medicine at its discovery with its ability to treat diseases, deadly at the time, that are now considered commonplace and easily treatable. Penicillin was one of the greatest discoveries of the twentieth century, as antibiotics are one of the most highly prescribed drugs in the world today. Although its discovery is often described as serendipitous, the process by which it was cultivated was quite meticulous, and continued attention has been paid to penicillin's further development. It is because penicillin and its derivatives have played such a vital role in everyday medicine that it is such an important topic.
by Dr. Alexander Fleming. As test continued, Fleming began to realize that he was on the verge of a great discovery. However, he still did not know the identity of the fungus, and had little knowledge of fungi. His crude extracts could be diluted 1,000 times and still be effective in killing bacteria. After years of working on penicillin and going nowhere, many of his co-workers grew tired of hearing about it. The first real test for penicillin came when a 48-year-old police officer nicked himself shaving. After a time, Alexander's face became infected and he developed a temperature. When he was rushed to the hospital, the doctors believed that he had only hours to live. Then Dr Fleming and his crew started to treat this patient. This was the first person that penicillin was used on. After five days, he was getting better. Unfortunately, because it was in such short supply, it had to be extracted from his urine, and the penicillin had been used up. The police officer died five days later. Their next attempt was successful. It involved a punctured eye. The stone was still in the eye, and normally the eye would have been amputated, but penicillin allowed the man to make a full recovery. By this time, it was now 1941, it was now acknowledged that penicillin was indeed a worthwhile drug and could save thousands of lives.
Discovery and Development of Penicillin. (2014, April 4). Retrieved from American Chemical Society International Historic Chemical Landmarks: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/flemingpenicillin.html
When people are infected, no matter how small, had a high chance of mortality. The author of “The Real Story Behind Penicillin” by H. Merkel states that during a case study Albert Alexander, was the first to be administered with Penicillin. He was inflicted with a cut inside his mouth and developed severe infection throughout his face. The effect of Penicillin was shown to be significantly useful, however production was significantly
The discovery of antibiotics is attributed to Alexander Fleming who discovered the first antibiotic to be commercially used (Penicillin) in approximately 1928. An antibiotic, also known as an antimicrobial, is a medication that is taken in order to either destroy or slow the growth rate of bacteria. Antibiotics are integral to the success of many medical practises, such as; surgical procedures, organ transplants, the treatment of cancer and the treatment of the critically ill. (Ramanan Laxminarayan, 2013)