Who Invented Penicillin First? Penicillin is the first antibiotic used in medicine, used to treat infections caused by bacteria. In 1928, the British researcher Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered the effects of Penicillin. On September 28, 1928, he discovered that a fungus had appeared in one of his cultures that produced a substance that destroyed the infectious bacteria that he cultivated to study.
This fungus was the Penicillium chrysogenum, of the Penicillium family, a fact for which Fleming gave the name of Penicillin to the substance is produced. The creation of Penicillin was a crucial event in the history of medicine since it allowed to cure of many diseases that, until the previous century, were considered incurable. Its massive use during World War II highlighted its therapeutic value as it was used for the treatment and cure of infections caused by war wounds, ushering in the era of antibiotics.
The new antibiotics not only managed to cure diseases that were previously believed incurable, but also reduced mortality and morbidity rates from clinical infections, increased the population’s fattening rate, and thus increased the life expectancy of the population than before he died from infections for which there was no specific treatment. Based on the structure of Penicillin, other types were created: on the one hand, natural penicillins, and on the other, semi-synthetic penicillins.
The first are those in which a biotechnical intervention is not necessary for their manufacture, an example is Penicillin G. As for the second, they are those in which the bacterium is isolated and chemical modifications are made in it, a An example of these is Benzylpenicillin such as Amoxicillin or Cloxacillin to self-treat mild infections that, in most cases, do not require treatment with antibiotics. . This fact made the population present resistance against the antibiotic, thus demanding the synthesis of a new series of more efficient Penicillin for the treatment of infections that the previous penicillins could no longer cure.
Thus, new synthetic antibiotics are created that are much more effective, with a much broader spectrum of action, and at a much cheaper cost than the previous ones. (This last fact is perhaps one of the factors that facilitated the abuse of the drug and its subsequent consequences)
Finally, once again Penicillin takes a turn in the history of medicine by demonstrating its efficacy in the treatment of animal infections, a fact for which a new series of suitable antibiotics began to be studied and developed within the field of veterinary medicine. for animals.
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