HISTORY
The use of moldy and fermented substances from dung and soybean curd to treat wounds and superficial swellings is described in the earliest medical records from China, Egypt, and Mesopotamia and dates back to at least 1500 ©. In 1874, William Roberts (1830-99) of Manchester, England, observed that a mold, Penicillium glaucum, was immune to bacterial infection. Shortly after, Louis Pasteur and Jules Franois Joubert (1834-1910) noted that anthrax bacilli failed to grow if cultures became contaminated with airborne molds.
The first true antibiotic,
penicillin, was
discovered by accident by Sir Alexander Fleming in 1928. However, he was not able to purify enough of it in order to test in animals or humans. The first antibacterial drug to receive widespread attention and use was Prontosil, a chemical dye. Prontosil's antibacterial activity was discovered somewhat by accident in Germany in the 1930s. It was found to be able to cure diseases caused by streptococci when injected into mice. The active ingredient in Prontosil was a chemical called a
sulfonamide, which was attached to the dye. This sulfonamide appeared to inhibit the metabolism of bacteria and kill them. Sulfonamides also
proved to be fairly nontoxic. Based on this, interest in
antimicrobials was sparked throughout the world.
With the release of Prontosil and renewed interest in antibiotics, Howard Florey and Ernst Chain were able to extract penicillin from Penicillium mold, keep it stable, and produce it in sufficient amounts to test in animals. They tested penicillin in a few patients, and obtained spectacular results. Pharmaceutical companies around the world then became interested in producing penicillin in large quantities.
Meanwhile, Rene Dubos observed that microbial populations in
soil held one another in check. He
isolated and purified an antibiotic from a soil bacterium in 1939. It and similar substances subsequently isolated were effective when applied to superficial wounds but proved too toxic for systemic administration. By 1944, Selman Abraham Waksman and his colleagues had isolated streptomycin from a soil microbe and proved its effectiveness against the tubercle bacillus.
Over the next 10 to 15 years a number of other anti-infective products were also discovered in various fungi and bacteria, including aminoglycosides, tetracyclines, and chloramphenicol. Following these discoveries, chemists began synthesizing antimicrobials based on what they knew about naturally occurring antibiotics. A number of sulfonamide drugs were produced in the laboratory, as well as trimethoprim. In the 1970s, trimethoprim was combined with sulfamethoxazole to form a single medication called cotrimoxazole. Also in the late 1960s, a class of synthetic antibiotics known as quinolones were discovered. Currently there are a variety of classes of antibiotics that are available for use
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