What was the medical significance of the discovery of antibiotics?

Christen Rayner, Year 12, St Anthony’s & St Aidan’s Sixth Form, Tyne and Wear

Prior to penicillin and medical research, death was an everyday occurrence. It was intimate.– Katherine Dunn

The discovery of penicillin was undoubtedly one of the most important scientific discoveries in recent history. However, despite penicillin being highly influential to modern medicine; penicillin was discovered accidentally. It was discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928, when after arriving back to his London laboratory from a two-week vacation he noticed there was a zone around an invading fungus on an Agar plate; in which the bacteria did not grow. After examining the mould, he noticed that it belonged to the Penicillium genus, and called the active agent penicillin. Upon examination of the mould he noticed that penicillin had an antibacterial effect on staphylococci (the bacteria in the Agar plate).

Despite Fleming discontinuing penicillin studies in 1931, studies of penicillin were completed by Howard Florey and Ernest Chain, two researchers of Oxford University. Then in 1940, with the help of Norman Heatley, who was able to extract penicillin from large volumes of filtrate from the fermentation vessels, Florey was able to carry out crucial experiments on penicillin. The experiments showed that the experimental penicillin, made from their production and purification process, had sufficient potency to protect organisms form Streptococci; a type of bacteria. This was achieved because the experiments had 8 mice injected with Streptococcus and then 4 of these mice with penicillin, whilst the other four were left as controls. The mice that were left as controls all died, but the four that were treated with penicillin survived. Further tests were carried out that proved penicillins effectiveness at treating bacterial infections, the first human recipient of penicillin was Albert Alexander; who was exhibiting a life-threatening infection, the administration of penicillin produced significant improvements in his condition. However unfortunately, because of the limited supply of the penicillin, he died a few weeks later.

The discovery of penicillin changed the course of modern medicine significantly, because due to penicillin infections that were previously untreatable and life threatening were now easily treated. These diseases include tonsillitis, bronchitis and pneumonia; which are all life threatening if left untreated, but with the help of penicillin the chances of survival increased significantly. Even dating back to World War Two, penicillin was crucial to saving millions of lives, with it decreasing the death rate from bacterial pneumonia in soldiers from 18% to 1% and saving the life of 1/7 UK wounded soldiers. Also, not only has penicillin directly change the world of medicine, by treating some bacterial infections, it also led to the creation of over a hundred other antibiotics; which all help improve the quality of life of people who without the antibiotics would be suffering from life-threatening diseases. Everybody in their lifetime has more than likely benefited significantly from the discovery of penicillin.

However the brilliance of antibiotics has actually turned out to be their weakness. As more antibiotics were being used to treat infections, the bacteria started to adapt to survive form the antibiotic, thus making it less effective. Without mitigation, antibiotic resistance will become a global threat within the next few decades. This means antibiotics are no longer as reliable to cure our infections and making the possible antibiotic resistance era that could be upon us soon very daunting. If antibiotics are used at the current rate and bacterial resistance continues then people are more susceptible to life threatening diseases, which would subsequently significantly reduce people’s life expectancy. There are already antibiotic resistant diseases, for example MRSA which although may not always be fatal it can cause serious secondary infections; and because they are resistant to antibiotics it is very difficult to treat and classed as a ‘superbug’.
In conclusion I believe that penicillin is one of the most important recent scientific discoveries, because of how influential it was in changing how we treat infections. The fact that penicillin was discovered accidentally highlights how a scientific breakthrough can occur at any point and scientists should never give up. The antibiotic resistance crisis highlights how dangerous a world without antibiotics is, and thus shows how important of a discovery penicillin was and will continue to be in the future.

Runner-up for the Schools Science Writing Competition, Trinity Term, 2020

Perspective from Theodore C. Eickhoff, MD

Source/Disclosures

Source: Fleming A. On the antibacterial action of cultures of a penicillium, with special reference to their use in the isolation ofB. influenzae.British Journal of Experimental Pathology. 1929;10:226-236. Haven KF.Marvels of Science: 50 Fascinating 5-Minute Reads. Connecticut: Libraries Unlimited; 1994:182.

Perspective from Theodore C. Eickhoff, MD

Source/Disclosures

ADD TOPIC TO EMAIL ALERTS

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the discovery of penicillin, the first naturally occurring antibiotic drug discovered and used therapeutically.

It all started with a mold that developed on a staphylococcus culture plate. Since then, the discovery of penicillin changed the course of medicine and has enabled physicians to treat formerly severe and life-threatening illnesses such as bacterial endocarditis, meningitis, pneumococcal pneumonia, gonorrhea and syphilis.

Source: Adobe Stock

Often described as a careless lab technician, Fleming returned from a two-week vacation to find that a mold had developed on an accidentally contaminated staphylococcus culture plate. Upon examination of the mold, he noticed that the culture prevented the growth of staphylococci.

Source: Adobe Stock

An article published by Fleming in the British Journal of Experimental Pathology in 1929 reads, “The staphylococcus colonies became transparent and were obviously undergoing lysis … the broth in which the mold had been grown at room temperature for one to two weeks had acquired marked inhibitory, bactericidal and bacteriolytic properties to many of the more common pathogenic bacteria.”

Fleming described the colony as a “fluffy white mass which rapidly increases in size and after a few days sporulates” and changes color from dark green to black to bright yellow.

Even in the early experimentation stages, penicillin had no effect against gram-negative organisms but was effective against gram-positive bacteria.

Published reports credit Fleming as saying: “One sometimes finds what one is not looking for. When I woke up just after dawn on Sept. 28, 1928, I certainly didn’t plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world’s first antibiotic, or bacteria killer. But I guess that was exactly what I did.”

Though Fleming stopped studying penicillin in 1931, his research was continued and finished by Howard Flory and Ernst Chain, researchers at University of Oxford who are credited with the development of penicillin for use as a medicine in mice.

Source: Adobe Stock

Penicillin helped reduce the number of deaths and amputations of troops during World War II. According to records, there were only 400 million units of penicillin available during the first five months of 1943; by the time World War II ended, U.S. companies were making 650 billion units a month.

To date, penicillin has become the most widely used antibiotic in the world. – by Katie Kalvaitis

References:

Fleming A. On the antibacterial action of cultures of a penicillium, with special reference to their use in the isolation of B. influenzae. British Journal of Experimental Pathology. 1929;10:226-236.

Haven KF. Marvels of Science: 50 Fascinating 5-Minute Reads. Connecticut: Libraries Unlimited; 1994:182.

Theodore C. Eickhoff, MD

The discovery of penicillin changed the world of medicine enormously. With its development, infections that were previously severe and often fatal, like bacterial endocarditis, bacterial meningitis and pneumococcal pneumonia, could be easily treated. Even dating all the way back to World War II and today with the war in Iraq, soldiers experienced injuries that would have been fatal without penicillin and other antibiotics that were developed subsequently. It is really impossible for me to imagine what the world would be like without penicillin. I question whether there would be a discipline of infectious diseases as we know it today. There were beginning treatments for pneumococcal pneumonia in the 1930s with antisera and sulfonamides, but use of these treatments quickly came to a halt, and everyone began using penicillin. This quickly led to a number of pharmaceutical industries beginning to screen a variety of other natural products for antibacterial activity, which led to a whole host of new antibiotics, such as streptomycin, aminoglycosides, tetracycline and the like. Penicillin clearly led the way in that development.

It is interesting that using penicillin for the treatment of infections like pneumococcal pneumonia and bacterial endocarditis never had a randomized, controlled trial because the difference with treatment was so clearly apparent that no one even thought of doing a randomized controlled trial.

Theodore C. Eickhoff, MD

Infectious Disease News Editor Emeritus

Professor of Medicine

Division of Infectious Disease

University of Colorado Health Sciences Center

Disclosures: Eickhoff reports no relevant financial disclosures.

ADD TOPIC TO EMAIL ALERTS