Fleming
Drugs are powerful tools in the battle for health. Penicillin is an excellent drug. Its great success in the battle against sickneas has led to the discovery and use of many other drugs that kill bacteria. But how was penicillin itself discovered?
Its discovefy was not chiefly the result of a scientific search for a new drug. Its discovery occurred because a woman, working in a medical laboratory in London forgot to cover a dish of material being used in an experiment. Luckily, this helper worked for Dr. Alexander Fleming.
Writers of history say that Fleming discovered penicillin in 1927, but other men before him had made use of the strange and powerful mold formed of living stuff. In ancient Egypt, there was a diseaset hat caused the head of the patient to be covered with sores. Doctors treated this sickness by rubbing the sores with animal fat or moldy pieces of wheat bread.
An ancient medical cure was to use baked and unbaked bread products, all of them moistened in water or wine. Such foods spoil rapidly in a climate such as Egypt's and become covered with a mold of bacteria.
Thus, yeast molds were used many centuries ago as medicines with which the Egyptians treated disorders within the body, skin diseases, and other sicknesses. It is interesting to note that the bacteria called "staphylococcus," which we now fight with drugs made from molds, cause blood poisoning and body sores.
Its discovefy was not chiefly the result of a scientific search for a new drug. Its discovery occurred because a woman, working in a medical laboratory in London forgot to cover a dish of material being used in an experiment. Luckily, this helper worked for Dr. Alexander Fleming.
Writers of history say that Fleming discovered penicillin in 1927, but other men before him had made use of the strange and powerful mold formed of living stuff. In ancient Egypt, there was a diseaset hat caused the head of the patient to be covered with sores. Doctors treated this sickness by rubbing the sores with animal fat or moldy pieces of wheat bread.
An ancient medical cure was to use baked and unbaked bread products, all of them moistened in water or wine. Such foods spoil rapidly in a climate such as Egypt's and become covered with a mold of bacteria.
Thus, yeast molds were used many centuries ago as medicines with which the Egyptians treated disorders within the body, skin diseases, and other sicknesses. It is interesting to note that the bacteria called "staphylococcus," which we now fight with drugs made from molds, cause blood poisoning and body sores.
LUCKY ACCIDENTS IN SCIENCE by DANIEL STEPHEN HALACY, JR.
Dell Publishing Co., Inc. New York. N. Y. 1967
Dell Publishing Co., Inc. New York. N. Y. 1967
posted by Ensaísta @ 2:34 AM
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