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By Daniel V. and Flinders.Z-L

Evaluate the effect Penicillin had upon the 20th century with reference to current practices and procedures of the drug.

Effects on WW2

The Previously Significant Threat of Bacterial Infection

Penicillin Today

Usage in WW2

The Discovery of Penicillin

Introduction

Introduction

  • Ever Since the dawn of humanity, diseases had plagued human beings causing millions if not billions of deaths throughout our history.
  • To live past the age of 35 was a struggle and as a result humans were unable to understand the causes of death due to a lack of knowledge and technological developments.
  • Early humans often blamed diseases on devils or the will of the gods and frequently thought their appearance was caused by wrong behavior or portended some chaos in the future.
  • This explanation had been used up until the introduction of proper medication such as penicillin and other forms of antibiotics.

Background Information

Bacterial Infection

Background Information

  • Penicillin is a part of a group of antibiotics that are utilised to treat bacterial infections.

  • Prior to Penicillin there were no effective treatments for bacterial diseases such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, gonorrhea or rheumatic fever.

  • The first patient of penicillin died as a result of a life-threatening infectious disease, however the second patient was saved by Penicillin from a severe infection

Penicillin

Penicillin's effect on WW2

Effect on WW2

  • Before Penicillin in WW1 of the 20 million lives lost during the war 14.7 million were due to diseases.
  • WW2 had been the first time penicillin had been vastly utilised
  • In World War I, the death rate from bacterial pneumonia and infections was 18 percent; in World War II, it fell to less than 1 percent due to the effectiveness of penicillin
  • Overall a significant amount of lives were saved in WW2 due to Penicillin

Sources

Supporting Penicillin's significance during WW2

Primary Source

Sources which support Penicillin's significance during WW2

  • Primary source of institute of health image of a poster taken in 1939 on a curbside mailbox.
  • Proves the effectiveness of Penicillin by proving Penicillin as a reliable drug, evident as the drug was advertised to soldiers so soon after testing and even before supply of the drug was comfortable.
  • Penicillin was advertised to soldiers who were most likely enjoying life before war which explains the poster claiming to cure an STD in 4 hours, evidently relating to world war 2 and proving immediate positive effect on world war 2.

Penicillin's effect on the mid 20th century

Effect on the Mid 20th Century

By the mid-to late 1940s, Penicillin was widely accessible for the general public. Newspaper headlines advertised its benefits and hailed it as a miracle drug.

With the emerging success of penicillin, pharmaceutical companies began to produce and develop other antibiotics such as Cephalosporin (discovered in 1948) and Macrolides (first discovered during the 1950’s).

The Discovery of Penicillin

Alexander Fleming

The Discovery of Penicillin

Alexander Fleming's Lab

  • First accidentally discovered by Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming in 1928.

  • At the time Fleming was experimenting with the influenza virus in the Laboratory at St. Mary’s Hospital in London.

  • Fleming noticed that a green mold known as Penicillium notatum had contaminated Petri dishes in his laboratory.

  • Fleming realised this could be purified into an anti-bacterial medicine

  • Fleming's lab did not have the resources or equipment to fully develop his discovery into a usable drug.

  • Other scientists attempted to purify penicillin to create the usable medicine but were unsuccessful.

The Invention of Penicillin

Including the first human testing

Howard Florey and Alexander Fleming

The invention and first testing of Penicillin

Howard Florey

  • In 1939, Howard Florey, and his colleagues were able to purify penicillin test upon animals.
  • Albert Alexander received the first dose of penicillin and in just a few days the treatment began healing Alexander of a life-threatening infection.
  • Unfortunately, Florey's team ran out of the drug before Albert Alexander was completely healed, and he died.
  • However after Fleming's work he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1945 and in his speech he warned that the overuse of penicillins might one day lead to bacterial resistance.
  • This has since become a problem.

Alexander Fleming

Source

Highlighting the significance of Alexander Fleming's Work

Sources which support the significance of Penicillin

Primary Source

  • The primary source on the right shows an image of a newspaper article by the New York Times made on the 26th of October, 1945.
  • The article describes Fleming, Florey and Chain’s work to invent Penicillin and the Nobel Prize they received for Physiology and Medicine in 1945 highlighting the significance of Penicillin’s positive effect upon 20th century dwellers.
  • To be regarded as Nobel Prize worthy in itself requires extraordinary success which shows the influence Penicillin created after saving millions of lives from bacterial infection.

Penicillin's Current Procedures

Penicillin's Current procedures

  • Low allergy rate as only 1 percent of people had been found to exhibit allergic reactions to the drug.

  • Even 80 years since the first penicillin was produced it is still being produced, there are now many natural and synthetic types of penicillin such as amoxicillin, ampicillin and piperacillin, all used to treat different infections

  • Strains of bacteria have become resistant to penicillin and other antibiotics due to overuse.

  • Penicillinase is where bacteria produces an enzyme that degrades and destroys penicillins.

  • Another type of immunity to Penicillin alters the bacterial structure and manipulates the functions of penicillin to be ineffective.

  • These methods of immunity prove that the drug was evidently more effective in the 20th century before the drug became overused

  • Overall the effect of Penicillin was extremely significant however it did reach a point of ineffectiveness

  • Although Penicillin has become slighty flawed, the drug is still unparalleled in medical achievements to date.

Conclusion

To describe the discovery of penicillin as an important milestone would be an absolute dishonour to mankind as the miracle drug was revolutionary in the medical field saving millions of lives and has now become one of the most widely used forms of antibiotics.

As a final evaluation of Penicillin’s effect upon the 20th century its contributions to World war 2 along with its role in developing other forms of antibiotics, it is no surprise how Penicillin is persistently used in today’s world and overall thought of as one of the most significant discoveries of the 20th century.

Nobel Prize for Penicillin

Bibilography

Bibliography

https://www.livescience.com/65598-penicillin.html

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rarenewspapers.com%2Fview%2F642845&psig=AOvVaw2as-IE8DhL_vTyVieoJg1u&ust=1596195218131000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCNihmdrw9OoCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAN

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3673487/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Fleming

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3673487/

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/216798#resistance

https://www.healio.com/news/endocrinology/20120325/penicillin-an-accidental-discovery-changed-the-course-of-medicine#:~:text=Penicillin%20discovered&text=Often%20described%20as%20a%20careless,prevented%20the%20growth%20of%20staphylococci.

https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/flemingpenicillin.html

https://www.kidsdiscover.com/quick-reads/penicillin-found-functional-fungus/

https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/discovery-and-importance-penicillin-and-development-sulfa-drugs

https://www.reactgroup.org/news-and-views/news-and-opinions/year-2018/7-ways-penicillin-has-cured-the-world-for-90-years/

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/the-real-story-behind-the-worlds-first-antibiotic#:~:text=In%20the%20war%2C%20penicillin%20proved,to%20less%20than%201%20percent.

https://www.healthychildren.org/English/health-issues/conditions/treatments/Pages/The-History-of-Antibiotics.aspx

https://www.worldwar1centennial.org/index.php/diseases-in-world-war-i.html#:~:text=Totals%20for%20the%20AEF%20were,combat%20deaths%20during%20the%20war.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/216798#history

https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/fromdnatobeer/exhibition-interactive/illustrations/penicillin-alternative.html

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/fromdnatobeer/exhibition-interactive/illustrations/penicillin-alternative.html

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