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Penicillin, a Type of Antibiotic

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Penicillin, a Type of Antibiotic
Name: Yao Xu
Class: F
Date: 9/20/13
Penicillin

Penicillin, discover by Sir Alexander Fleming in 1928, is a type of antibiotics that can slow down the growth of bacteria or to kill them. Penicillin only affects on bacteria and it doesn’t help with the infection of virus. Penicillin is divided into two groups: natural penicillin and man-made penicillin (Lowe D. 2012).
During World War II, penicillin saved a lot of people in Europe. The first person saved by penicillin was a nurse named Anne Sheafe Miller. She was feverish with a temperature near 107° Fahrenheit. Doctor tried everything to save her. At last, they gave her an injection of natural penicillin, an experimental drug at that time. She miraculously recovered from the fatal disease (Gale, Cengage Learning 2013). As time goes by, more and more types of antibiotics are discovered. Penicillin is no longer treated as wonder drug because antibiotic resistance spread all over the world. The overuse of these antibiotics leads to huge public health problems (Nafsika & Donald 2012). Natural penicillin used to be in a big supply, but people soon realized that the germs became so strong that penicillin could not be affective. It even leads to worse situation. So the only way to save those patients is to try antibiotics one by one until one works. Doctors need to use antibiotics properly in order to minimize the resistance (Lerner 2007).

References
Lowe D. (2012). Penicillin. Retrieved from http://www.accessscience.com/content.aspx?SearchInputText=Antibiotic&id=495850 Nafsika H. & Donald B. (2012). Antibiotic. Retrieved from http://www.accessscience.com/content/Antibiotic/040000
Gale, Cengage Learning (2013). Penicillins. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CDJKSRY140645967&v=2.1&u=nysl_me_sfphs&it=r&p=GPS&sw=w Lerner E. & Lerner K. (2007). Penicillin. Retrieved from
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CCV2644650326&v=2.1&u=nysl_me_sfphs&it=r&p=GPS&sw=w


References: Lowe D. (2012). Penicillin. Retrieved from http://www.accessscience.com/content.aspx?SearchInputText=Antibiotic&id=495850 Nafsika H. & Donald B. (2012). Antibiotic. Retrieved from http://www.accessscience.com/content/Antibiotic/040000 Gale, Cengage Learning (2013). Penicillins. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CDJKSRY140645967&v=2.1&u=nysl_me_sfphs&it=r&p=GPS&sw=w Lerner E. & Lerner K. (2007). Penicillin. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CCV2644650326&v=2.1&u=nysl_me_sfphs&it=r&p=GPS&sw=w
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