Practically everybody has taken antibiotics once in life. They can treat a wide range of illnesses: infections, lacerations, pneumonia, etc. There are a lot of arguments among people about benefits and harm of antibiotics. Somebody suggests that they will disappear soon. But the greatest question what medicine will replace antibiotics.
The history of antibiotics takes place long ago. Then ancient people discovered that molds could cure infected wounds. The scientists didn’t find out either these people were Chinese, Indians, Egyptian or there lived in Central Africa. Either way, they didn’t know anything about microorganisms and cells. All they knew is anything that can help with getting rid of evil spirits and treating body humours imbalance is beneficial to them.
The time was passing and people were learning more about the peculiarities of diseases and illnesses. In the second half of the XIX century Louis Pasture discovered the bacteria caused a lot of diseases. Some years later he revealed that germs can be defeated by other bacteria. At the end of the XIX century German doctors Oscar Low and Rudolf Emmerich created the first medicine from bacteria. They concluded that germs, which cause one illness can be used as a treatment for another one.
They held an experiment. They took a germ from one infected wound and then grew a bacteria colony in the test tube. Then they isolated the germ and put it in the next test tube with another bacteria. The scientists named this germ Bacillus pyocyaneus. What they noticed is Bacillus pyocyaneus killed all the other bacteria in the test tube. The bacteria killed by Bacillus were those, causing anthrax, cholera, diphtheria and typhoid.
After this experiment the doctors created the first antibiotic, named “pyocyanase”. It was the first to be tried in hospitals. But the antibiotic didn’t cure all the patients, some of them were getting worse. As a result a new medicine was forbidden.
The next era of studying antibiotics was begun in 1928 by a scientist Alexander Fleming. He was working in the London hospital then. What he examined was a germ under the name “staphylococcus aureus”. He conducted his experiment by growing the germ’s colonies in petri dish.
Once the scientist noticed a green spot among bacteria in the petri dish. After careful examination he found out that the mold was free of germs. He concluded that the mold killed the germs.
Fleming took this liquid and put it in the test tube with other germs. The effect was the same. All the germs disappeared. He named the mold “Penicillium notratum”, or liquid penicillin. Then other scientists began to held experiments with this liquid on infected animals, such as rabbits and mice. The result was the same. The animals were cured with a new antibiotic.
The next era of inventing antibiotics was begun by creating sulfa drug. Its origin is Prontosil, a dye substance. On the body Prontosil turns into the drug, killing germ. This drug is called sulfanilamide. The scientists revealed that the antibiotic could treat pneumonia, scarlet fever, and blood poisoning. After that laboratories began to produce antibiotics with similar characteristics. They were named sulfa drugs. But the problem was that these drugs had several defects. What was very important is to give an exact quantity of the medicine to the patient. By taking a less amount of the drug, a patient can become sicker. If a doctor gives more to the patient, it will cause a malfunction of the body’s defense system. So there were more attempts to study other antibiotics.
Selman Waksman was the next scientist who discovered a new antibiotic. He called it streptomycin. It came from bacteria discovered in soil and could be used as a treatment for intestinal illnesses. Penicillin and steptomycin were good remedies for several diseases, but couldn’t be used as medicines for various illnesses. Everybody was searching for a drug which could cure wide spectrum of illnesses. By the middle of the XX century a lot of antibiotics were discovered. The antibiotics, like Terramycin, Aureomycin and Chloromycin were used in treating more diseases and could kill more bacteria. Since that time the antibiotics have taken the first place among all the other drugs.
Nowadays antibiotics are so important to medicine that they are studied and produced in large amounts. Production process includes several stages: at first bacteria and microorganisms are screened, then they are isolated and grown in the test tube, and finally antibiotics are produced from the bacteria due to fermentation process.
But there is one big problem with antibiotics. They don’t kill all the bacteria in the organism. Some bacteria manage to resist and survive. The survived bacteria are breeding and new resisting bacteria appear. So the used antibiotic isn’t effective any more. Ultimately, as the time passes we need to study and develop new antibiotics, because the killing power of the produced antibiotics lessens day after day.
