Preview

Penicillin: A Wonder Drug

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1064 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Penicillin: A Wonder Drug
Wonder Drug Most people know that Penicillin is an extremely important drug, but few know just how important and influential it really is. Think about what life would be like today without it. What would be of contemporary medicine today? Would society as a whole succumb to these relentless infinitesimal organisms? What would have been of one’s ancestors if they too like so many before and after incurred a serious infection? This essay shall explore these questions and many like it. It will explain why penicillin is undoubtedly the best medication of the century, perhaps the best medication ever in existence. Penicillin is produced by a bread mold, known as Penicillium. The discovery of Penicillin sometimes referred to as the “wonder drug” has been the most important drug to date. It has the ability to kill just about any bacterial infection and at the time of it’s creation there was no other drug or anything like it. To this date it has saved millions of children, women, men and animals. The wonder drug was originally discovered purely by accident by one Alexander Fleming, a Scottish Scientist in the year 1928. Penicillin was later developed further by many different Scientists who were able to use it to create numerous versions of antibiotics to cure a vast range of illnesses. Antibiotics have been used for several years in treatment for a variety of skin disorders, sexually transmitted diseases, strep throat, and respiratory illnesses. Before Penicillin was discovered, if one were to have a serious infection, death was irrefutable. People often would die of the smallest wounds due to bacterial infections. Bacteria mutates quite often, creating antibiotic-resistant organisms. Which makes it become resistant to the drug. Even with this said, there are still only a small amount of bacteria that Penicillin and it’s predecessors can not tackle and over come. One of Penicillin’s most advertised uses was for combating sexually transmitted diseases. There are


Cited: "Drugs." Questions and Answers for Consumers on Penicillin G Procaine. Food and Drug Administration, 23 May 2003. Web. 11 Mar. 2013. . "Smallpox Disease Overview." CDC Smallpox. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 30 Dec. 2004. Web. 11 Mar. 2013. .

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    BIO 104 Chapter 3

    • 7229 Words
    • 29 Pages

    Fleming himself warned against this very danger. In his own research, he found that whenever too little penicillin was used or when it was used for too little time, populations of bacteria emerged that were resistant to the antibiotic. In a 1945 interview in the New York Times, Fleming warned that improper use of penicillin could lead to the survival and reproduction of virulent strains of bacteria that are resistant to the drug. He was right. In 1945, when penicillin was first introduced to the public, virtually all strains of Staphylococcus aureus were sensitive to it.…

    • 7229 Words
    • 29 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    These men were given standard treatment but were denied antibiotics. In 1940, researchers discovered that penicillin was an effective cure. During the 1950s, penicillin…

    • 393 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fleming was convinced that penicillin could not last long enough in the human body to kill pathogenic bacteria, and stopped studying it after 1931. He restarted clinical trials in 1934, and continued to try to get someone to purify it until 1940…

    • 316 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    No doubt the pain and suffering endured by the soldiers could have been greatly reduced by its use. It was not only a miracle drug for the soldiers in battle, it also saved many lives in society. Children who received cuts and scrapes during play could now be cured in a relatively short time with this simple fungus. Often simple wounds, or even wounds received by farmers, or factory workers who were hurt on the job were often a death sentence. The discovery of penicillin changed that. Not only was penicillin great at healing wounds, it was also effective against diseases such as syphilis, strep throat, and rheumatic fever. When you consider the massive number of people whose lives have been saved, it is easy to declare that penicillin is one of the greatest discoveries of all…

    • 437 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ap Biology Unit 9 Essay

    • 659 Words
    • 3 Pages

    This is a serious case prof. According to, “United Nations Development Programme, Mandeep Dhaliwal, warned of a return to the era before Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin. “We are on the road back to the days of people dying from common infections and injuries.”(Viva, 2016, p.4).…

    • 659 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mrsa Research Paper

    • 1794 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) was first discovered in the 1880s and is a dangerous and versatile pathogen that causes many types of severe diseases. Most commonly it causes skin infections, respiratory tract infections, and food poisoning. In the 1940s, when the antibiotic medications such as penicillin was discovered and introduced, it became a primary treatment for S. aureus infections. However, misusing and overusing the use of antibiotics caused the evolution of these bacteria to become resistant to drugs that were designed to combat these infections. Throughout 1950s, S. aureus became resistant to penicillin, so methicillin was introduced to counter the growing populations of penicillin-resistant S. aureus. In 1961, the first strains of S. aureus bacteria became resistant to methicillin and so the methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) was born. Since methicillin is a form of penicillin, the MRSA are resistant to an entire class of penicillin-like antibiotics called beta-lactams. S. aureus continues to evolve and have shown more resistance to additional antibiotic drugs over time (NIH, 2008).…

    • 1794 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    less than ten years after antibiotics were introduced to the medical field. The Center for Disease…

    • 1390 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    This website was a brief history on the expansion and mass production of Antibiotics from 1928 to 2000. I used this website in order to have a basic understanding of how Penicillin was the starting blocks for antibiotics.…

    • 2536 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Penicillin was probably the number one most used invention of the entire war. Penicillin was invented in 1928 by Alexander Fleming but it was not used in mass production until World War II (Rosenberg, Alexander Fleming Discovers Penicillin). The war had so many casualties that it forced the mass use of penicillin to fight off the bacteria in the soldiers wounds and bodies. Without penicillin soldiers who had minor injuries may have died or suffered amputation do to infection caused by bacteria. Penicillin saved uncountable lives and limbs of soldiers during the war. Penicillin was the most important and lifesaving invention forced into use during World War II. Brian J. Ford…

    • 1407 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928 which was the first antibiotic that fights bacteria. During the 1900's pneumonia was one of the leading killers in America prior to the discovery of penicillin. Penicillin is important as it prevents previous life-threatening infections like pneumonia, blood infection, meningitis, and strep throat. In addition, because of penicillin, several amputations, and deaths (due to infection) during the second world war decreased. Many people have benefited from the invention of penicillin since its discovery and one of them was me. When I was a young kid, I had strep throat and my doctor prescribed me Penicillin. Infections that were life-threatening in the past can be cured with medicine. Another explanation…

    • 404 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Howard Florey

    • 677 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Fleming would, unfortunately, make a prediction that would come true. That the use of penicillin would, in time, be of limited value because bacteria would eventually recombine genetically to resist the effects of penicillin. By as early as 1952, as much as three-fifths of all staph infections were penicillin resistant. Various steps were taken so as to continue the use of antibiotics. New antibiotics are constantly being sought for this reason. Other approaches include using combination of antibiotics and changing the chemical structure of antibiotics in the laboratory so that all of slightly different properties. These attempts have all been tried and have been successful, but unfortunately, the bacteria are still recombining…

    • 677 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    1920s Medicine Essay

    • 1542 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Many lives were changed and saved because of the great discoveries of penicillin, insulin, vitamins, and Band-Aids. These weren’t the end of the medicine advancements. They were only the beginning. Work Cited Adler, Richard. "Medicine.…

    • 1542 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    1918 Life Changes

    • 1408 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Life before September 1928 proved to be a difficult time for many. The quality of life across the world was poor, and humans had a considerably shorter lifespan than today. Bacterial infections ranked as a leading cause of death. These infections spread easily, and diseases such as pneumonia, syphilis, gonorrhea, diphtheria, and scarlet fever as well as wounds and childbirth infections killed thousands every year. Surgical infections were also a major killer, and doctors had no protection from any of these infections. The discovery of the first antibiotic, penicillin, in 1928 changed the lives of people forever. Penicillin provided a cure for many deadly infections, and its discovery led to the discovery of many other antibiotics, such as streptomycin, which are used to treat everyday infections for countless ailments, saving and improving lives throughout the world.…

    • 1408 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Medical Advancements

    • 1523 Words
    • 7 Pages

    One may argue that one of the most helpful drugs during word war two, penicillin, was discovered in 1960, prior to world war two. Although penicillin wasn’t discovered during world war two, it was improved on many levels during the time such as production on an industrial scale, it became much more readily available, and by 1945 it was 20 times stronger than the 1939 version of penicillin. Therefore, even though penicillin was developed pre world war two, it made extreme improvements since 1939. It was 20 times stronger than the 1939 version.…

    • 1523 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In her Ted Talk, Maryn McKenna illustrates the danger that humanity was in before the rise of antibiotics, and the future risks that will arise if further intervention on antibiotic resistance is not done. She describes that in the past, before penicillin was discovered by Alexander Fleming, infections were the primary cause of death and most people did not live past the age of forty. Once antibiotics were discovered, they functioned as a panacea, saving people from injuries and infections and allowed them to live longer lives. However, the seventy years of freely using antibiotics has caused bacteria to develop resistance via natural selection and special plasmid transfer, and now the deaths caused by infections are on the rise again. McKenna recommends that to combat this crisis which can lead to ten million deaths per year according to the Review on Antimicrobial Resistance, people should avoid buying products from companies that heavily use antibiotics and medical experts should avoid prescribing antibiotics when it is not necessary.…

    • 283 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays