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Facts about
ANTIBIOTICS

Chemical substances capable of inhibiting the growth of micro-organisms and used to treat infections. They are produced naturally micro-organisms such as moulds, bacteria, and viruses, and can also be produced by chemical synthesis. The development of the antibiotics is the mid 20th century's greatest general contribution to medical treatment. When used in the treatment of a disease an antibiotic alters the metabolism of the germs with which it comes into contact. It is particularly effective against those in the process of reproduction. It is essential that the patient should be able to take the antibiotic without suffering side effects, and that it should be specifically harmful to the germs producing the particular complaint. Moreover, the antibiotic must not be destroyed by the body before it has had its effect, and it must reach all parts of the body affected by the disease.

In some cases, however, the antibiotic may destroy useful as well as harmful bacteria. The prolonged use of certain antibiotics may cause the infecting organism to become resistant to their action. For example, while the pneumococcus, the bacterium responsible for pneumonia, is always sensitive to penicillin, resistance is rapidly acquired by the staphylococcus that causes certain skin infections. It is also possible for germs which have come into contact with a certain antibiotic over a long period to show a resistant to other antibiotics having a similar chemical composition.

Before any antibiotic is used in treatment, tests should be carried out to determine the sensitivity of the germs responsible for the disease to various antibiotics, so that the most effective may be used. Penicillin is used for pneumococcal pneumonia and for meningitis: streptomycin is used particularly for intestinal and tuberculous disease. Others are specific for whooping-cough, trachoma, and diseases of the urino-genital system. There are no effective antibiotics for diseases such as poliomyelitis, influenza, or measles, which are caused by viruses.

The first antibiotic to be discovered, accidentally, was that of penicillin in 1928 by Alexander Fleming. The Second World War stimulated mastery in the United States of the problems of large-scale production as the penicillin were found to be effective against most forms of pus-forming cocci and against the coffi of pneumonia, meningitis, and diphtheria and bacilli of anthrax and tetanus. Selman Abraham Waksman, a Russian immigrant to the United States, isolated streptomycin in 1944, an antibiotic that revolutionized the treatment and mortality of pulmonary tuberculosis. Chloramphinicol, valuable for typhoid and typhus fevers, was isolated in 1947, and was the first antibiotic to be synthesized, in 1949. Aureomycin, invaluable in the treatment of pneumonia, was first obtained in 1948.