ACCIDENTAL MIGHTY DISCOVERIES #1 | PENICILLIN |

Hello Dear Steemians!!

Welcome to my very first episode of Accidental Mighty Discoveries in which we will talk about the story behind the most impactful accidental discoveries that has changed the way we live today.

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How often do we need to use antibiotics?? The answer is pretty much obvious. We all, at some point of time, have used antibiotics to cure our minor to severe infections. But Do you know what is the first antibiotics to be ever discovered and moreover the fact that its discovery was just an accident??

Disease can be said the most deadly and humanity has always fought against the disease and infection. This is the story of how the mightiest weapon against the disease was framed. A story of the 1st of the modern wonder drug, an antibiotics- PENICILLIN. 

Chemical structure of penicillin core (credit : pharmafactz.com)

It was 19th century when people somehow began to understand the role of bacteria and other germs had to play. This led to expeditious improvement of hygiene. But it was not until 1928 that Sir Alexander Fleming find out a way to treat infection when he discovered Penicillin.

Sir Alexander Fleming was a Scottish doctor and scientist. He was born in 1881 and attended St. Mary's hospital London to study medicine. He began research in 1906 and had a reputation of brilliant researcher. He had been studying the bacteria Staphylococcus.

Sir Alexander Fleming (credit- link)

But, he was notoriously untidy. In one summer month of 1928, he went on a holiday without cleaning his laboratory. As a result, he left plates of bacteria culture in a laboratory next to a open window only to find a mould (fungus) growing in the plate on return. He was about to wash the plate but suddenly something truly extraordinary caught his eye. The mould had destroyed all the bacteria that were around it. This was it. Sir Alexander Fleming had just entirely discovered the first antibiotic which had the capability to revolutionize the entire world of medicine and was named Penicillin (also known as penicillin G) as the mould belonged to the Penicillium group of fungi. 

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Attempts to use penicillin was done from 1930 and mass production started from 1940.

 Sample of penicillin mould presented by Alexander Fleming to Douglas Macleod, 1935  (credit- link)

Penicillin made a direct impact during World War II treating the amputations caused by infected wounds thereby reducing the number of deaths.

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"Penicillin in early penicillin era was so highly valued and limited that they collected urine from the patients being treated to isolate and reuse because penicillin is actively excreted and about 80% of penicillin dose is cleared within 3-4 hours of administration."

Today the use of penicillin are very significant. Since then, several other penicillin have been derived, and the original structure has been modified to create new penicillin with enhanced effectiveness against a broader range of bacteria. Other penicillin include penicillin V (phenoxymethylpenicillin), amoxicillin, ampicillin, cloxacillin, flucloxacillin, piperacillin, and ticarcillin. 

Antibiotics are now so prolific that an estimated 80 million lives have been saved. This is only possible because of that one good accident as someone rightly said half of the art is accident but also there is no accident without free experiment.

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That is it for today. In coming episodes, we will be talking about other interesting discoveries that were result of accidents. If you like this episode, please upvote, reesteem, have your say and follow.