| Since the early 1900's, we have been using a drug | | | | of the mold when it was grown in a vat containing |
| called Penicillin to treat bacterial infections in the | | | | corn steep liquor and strangely, it was not found |
| human body, but something a lot of people don't | | | | abroad, but right at home in Peoria in a market next |
| know is that it was discovered quite by accident by | | | | to the lab assisting Oxford with the production of the |
| a Scottish scientist named Sir Alexander Fleming in | | | | mold. |
| the year 1928. | | | | By almost the end of 1941, Andrew J. Moyer, a mold |
| In his laboratory in St. Mary's Hospital in London, he | | | | nutrition expert, succeeded in multiplying the penicillin |
| discovered that the mold Penicillium notatum had | | | | production by 10 times and by the year 1943, the |
| found its way into a culture dish of Staphylococcus | | | | clinical trials needed to approve the penicillin doses for |
| and was inhibiting its growth. | | | | public use. |
| He thought initially that it could be a good disinfectant | | | | These doses were extremely expensive in the year |
| and noted that it was highly effective, but was | | | | 1940, but as time went on, they became much less |
| minimally toxic. The importance of his discovery was | | | | costly, being around $20 a dose in July of 1943, and |
| not really known at the time and the use of penicillin | | | | around fifty cents per dose in 1946. |
| did not really begin until the 1940's. | | | | About four years after penicillin had begun being |
| Howard Florey and three of his colleagues at Oxford | | | | produced on a large scale in 1943, bacteria and other |
| University started to research further into penicillin. | | | | microbes started resisting it. |
| The ability that it had to kill infectious bacteria was | | | | Staphylococcus aureus was one of the first to |
| particularly interesting, but since the country was in | | | | effectively battle penicillin and while it is a normal, |
| the middle of World War II, it was unable to gather | | | | mostly harmless inhabitant of the human body, it can |
| the funds necessary to produce mass amounts of | | | | cause pneumonia or TSS (toxic shock syndrome, |
| the penicillin required for clinical trials and looked to | | | | associated with the use of tampons) when it begins |
| the United States for assistance. | | | | to multiply in large numbers. It then begins to produce |
| A search worldwide began for the perfect strain of | | | | a toxin and this is what makes the person ill. |
| penicillin mold that would produce the largest amount | | | | |