Penicillin
The article discusses who Dr Alexander Fleming is, what penicillin is how he discovered this important antibiotic.
Dr Alexander Flemings was one of the most very famous scientists. He is the person who discovered the antibiotic Penicillin. In 1928 Dr Alexander Flemings returned from his holiday to his lab in St Mary’s Hospital. When he returned to the lab, he saw a mould growing on a Petri Dish of staphylococcus bacteria. In that, he noticed the mould was preventing the bacteria from growing around the Petri Dish. Soon after some time, he managed to identify that the mould produced a self-defensive chemical that kills the bacteria.
Penicillin surely is a very important discovery made by Dr Alexander Flemings. Penicillin was the first antibiotic used by doctors. In addition, there are several antibiotics in the penicillin class. According to Anne Miller, she was the first civilian to receive successful treatment with penicillin. She narrowly avoided death following severe infection after a miscarriage. (Newman, 2018). There may be some side effects on the intake of Penicillin like, Diarrhea, Nausea, headaches, skin rashes or hives. However, there are some people who get allergic to Penicillin. Those people tend to catch on Hives, wheezing, and swelling that also mostly on the face.
In late summer 1940, Albert Alexander was an oxford police officer. One day when he was working on his rose garden, he scratched his face. By the time the scratch became infected by streptococci and staphylococci, it spread to his eyes and scalp. After a few weeks, e was admitted to the Oxford University Hospital. They injected him with doses of Sulfa drug for a week. It didn’t cure him. Instead, the medication gave him a terrible rash. According to Lax, Alexander was in “great pain” and “desperately and pathetically ill” for months as he lay in the hospital with no cure available. The abscesses on his face and arms were “oozing pus everywhere,”. Alexander's left eye had to be removed in February 1941 due to the severity of the infection. (Bernard, 2020). The bacteria continued to him, and it soon spread to his lungs and shoulders. The doctors were desperate and gave him 200 milligrams of Penicillin, which was the highest dose that was given at that time to a patient. According to lax, within 24 hours, there was a drastic improvement. (Bernard, The Washington Post, 2020).
During World War 1, 10 million soldiers were killed. Half of them died due to untreatable infections from minor injuries. As Europe sank deeper into the War, the labs all around the world requested Oxford to give samples of penicillin. These are some of the reasons why the drug penicillin is an important discovery.
In conclusion, Penicillin is a very important and very useful discovery as it saved many lives. Although there are side effects of the antibiotic, there are cures for the side effects. The discovery of penicillin is important as it was very useful in World War I and World War II.
Reference
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/07/11/penicillin-coronavirus-florey-wwii-infection/
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/15107#treatment
Author Biography
Mishka Mohamed Mahdy, a 17-year-old from Male' and is a student at Maldives National University currently doing a foundation in Humanities. She has an interest in psychology and in helping other people. In her free time, she loves to bake, cook and sometimes draw.
Cite this article as:
Mishka Mohamed Mahdy, Penicillin, theCircle Composition, Volume 2, (2022). https://theCircleComposition.org/penicillin/