history of penicillin

History of Penicillin Penicillin is perhaps the most important discovery in the field of medicine. Before Penicillin was discovered and until the time that it was largely produced, there had only been a few drugs that effectively cured infectious diseases Mendeley Edited Citation{baf7208b-e20d-46b7-ae6a-d7ba295d59cb}(U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, 1995). As a result, Penicillin instantly became a ‘wonder drug` because it made treatments against diseases more effective and manageable Mendeley Edited Citation{baf7208b-e20d-46b7-ae6a-d7ba295d59cb}(U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, 1995). The discovery of Penicillin started in September of 1928 when Alexander Fleming accidentally left his glass plates unkempt in his laboratory Mendeley Citation{078021f0-c983-4cfc-9ef8-b94b3f2e6fed} Prev:{(De la Bedoyere, 2005)}(De la Bedoyere, 2005). The glass plates contained cultures of Staphylococcus aureus (Ho, 1999). At the time, Fleming went away on a holiday, leaving the cultures exposed to the air for a few days (Ho, 1999). Upon returning, he observed that a mould had grown on the plates. The more intriguing observation he found was that the area surrounding the mould was void of cultures of the Staphylococcus aureus bacteria (De la Bedoyere, 2005). Fleming believed that the mould might have had properties that were the same as lysozymes (Hare, 1982). Fleming further deduced that the mould released a substance that impeded the growth of the bacteria. Since the mould was identified to be of the species Penicillium notatum (Ho, 1999), Fleming named the active substance as penicillin Mendeley Citation{078021f0-c983-4cfc-9ef8-b94b3f2e6fed} Prev:{(De la Bedoyere, 2005)}(De la Bedoyere, 2005). Due to this accidental discovery, the source of the mould became controversial. The question regarding the source of the mould was imperative in order to find a strain that produced a potent form of penicillin (Hare, 1982). Supposedly, moulds are not widely available in the air, most specially in a room. Fleming allegedly suggested that the mould was blown in his lab through the window. Hare (1982) rejected this statement, alleging that the windows were infrequently opened because these were difficult to reach. Hare (1982) suggested that the mould might have come from the mycological laboratory that was located a floor below Fleming`s laboratory. Hare (1982) further suggested that Fleming did not acknowledge the true source of the mould because the mycological laboratory and the institute that he works for might be implicated for not being able to contain their mould specimen. In the end, studies conducted by Fleming found that a specimen taken from the mycological laboratory in his building had the same characteristics as the mould on the glass plates (Hare, 1982). In the years that followed however, Fleming was no longer involved in the development of penicillin. This was because he lacked the expertise to obtain a pure form of penicillin (Ho, 1999). Instead, Professor Howard Florey and his colleagues from the University of Oxford continued the research on the antibiotic properties of the substance...