Saturday, May 28, 2011

Penicillin

Penicillin was the first antibiotic developed to prevent many diseases caused by micro organisms, and it managed to avoid many infections, some lethal.

Penicillin has saved millions of lives, because it gets into contact with the bacteria that cause infectious disease, and it breaks the wall of the bacteria.

Its inventor was Alexander Fleming (1881-1955), and he is probably one of the most famous scientists.
Fleming, in September 1928 uncovered a container with a culture of bacteria for several days, and just when he was going to throw it, he realized that a few drops of mold that had fallen into the container had killed the bacteria. Fleming realized that this mold, which he called Penicillium Notatum ( the effect was called penicillin), could kill some bacteria, but not all, so after several years of development appeared the first effective antibiotic.

Thanks to penicillin, 100 other antibiotics have been identified, so that one third of patients in the world, treated with antibiotics, can receive the most appropriate antibiotic to their needs.

If you want more information about penicillin, here I leave you a link:
And here is another where you can learn more about the life of the scientist who developed it, Alexander Fleming:

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