Penicillin Accidental Discovery

Medicine today is required for almost anything, from a simple cold, to a fever, to something more serious such as recovering from a surgery. Antibiotics have become mainstream objects that are taken for granted, yet there was a point in time where medicine was not as accessible or numerous as it is now. An extremely effective medicine that is used widely today but did not exist until somewhat recently is penicillin. It kills bacteria and fights off infections, clearing the body of any diseases that it might have. The medicine now known as penicillin had a purely accidental discovery, and its use is to prevent any bacteria from spreading. Initially, it was a French medical student, Ernest Duchesne, who noticed penicillin in 1896. However, it was Alexander Fleming who re-discovered and popularized it in 1928 through a series of purely coincidental events. When he left for a one month

It also had to be produced in practical amounts or only a trivial amount of people would be able to receive this medicine. Howard Florey and Ernst Chain began the effort of devising a way of using penicillin in humans. Part of the reason this drug was needed was to reduce the bacterial infections in soldiers’ wounds from World War II. The nature of the medicine is to stop the growth of bacteria, so in the wound it would prevent any infection from spreading, sparing the life of the soldier. However, to be able to treat the vast number of injured soldiers, a better method of producing penicillin would have to be developed. This method was to pump air into deep vats containing corn steep liquor and adding other key ingredients, which produced penicillin faster and in larger amounts than with the surface-growth method. With a clear purpose for penicillin and a way to produce it in significant amounts completed, the medicine could then be used for treating the wounded soldiers and saving countless