Chemo-Therapeutic Effects Of Penicillin In The 40's

As the American populous swayed with the beat of the Big Band era, so did pharmacology sway into action with the upbeat tone of the dawning antibiotic era. Antibiotics are medicine, such as penicillin or its derivatives, that inhibits the growth of or destroys microorganisms. The discovery and development of new antibiotics in the 40’s changed the way people lived by advancing the way infections and diseases were treated, the way live stock was grown, and the improvement of the quality of life in the United States.
Sir Alexander Fleming, was a biologist, pharmacologist and botanist, he is known for the discovery of the antibiotic substance benzylpenicillin, Penicillin, from the mould Penicillium notatum in 1928. Penicillin is an antibiotic or group of antibiotics produced naturally by certain blue molds, and now usually prepared synthetically. Because of its activity against staphylococcus, Fleming’s penicillin was one of the compounds chosen for study. The first step toward isolating penicillin came in March 1940; in May 1940, Howard Florey analyzed the chemo-therapeutic effects of penicillin by treating mice infected with Streptomyces. The mice …show more content…
It also helped defeat mastitis, an infection in the udders of dairy cattle. As antibiotics began to be used in livestock herds, farmers and researchers noticed an interesting development, the animals did not only have improved health because of the antibiotics, but they also grew faster, which would then as a result make meat cheaper because it would allow animals to produce more meat without using more feed. As a result of this discovery antibiotics were added to the feed of all animals in the herd, whether they had bacterial infections or not. Antibiotics may also be given to animals that are in danger of becoming sick in order to prevent the illness or infection from occurring or spreading throughout the