When was the first antibiotic made and what was its source?
1 Answer
In 1928, Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered, that a mound growing on a discarded culture plate was showing antibacterial action.
Explanation:
The fungi was Penicillium chrysogenus (earlier known as P. notatum) and the bacterial culture in the plate was of Stapphylococcus. However Fleming referred to it as mould juice and thought it to be an antiseptic.
Much later Florey and Chain analysed its biochemistry and identified the active ingredient or the first antibiotic Penicillin for mankind. Till 1940, not much of the chemical was available to experiment on human patients. One young assistant in Florey's laboratory, Norman Heatley developed the process of back extraction which eventually changed history of medicine for ever. Doctors successfully started using penicillin to treat infections by 1942.
Large scale production of penicillin resulted from the developement of a deep tank fermentation plant by chemical engineer Margaret H Rousseau . By 1945 over 646 billion units per year were being produced.
