The discovery of antibiotics is the greatest event in the
history of medicine. It was discovered accidentally by Alexander Fleming, a professor of bacteriology while doing some research on bacterial diseases in London
in 1928.
He was surprised to
see that the bacteria he was trying to grow for his experiments were being
killed by some mysterious growth that had settled on his culture plates. He found
that it was the penicillium genus of moulds that generally grows on stale foodstuff. He published a paper on it and then forgot all, about it.
During World War II, Howard Florey and Ernest Chain, two
Oxford doctors were looking for some more effective treatment for tile healing
of war wounds.
They rediscovered Fleming’s report, set to work on it and
extracted the essential substance. They named it penicillin, which is undoubtedly
the most valuable 20th-century contribution to medicine. The two
Oxford doctors shared with Fleming the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1945.
The two Oxford doctors shared with Fleming the Nobel Prize
for medicine in 1945. Fleming and Florey were knighted in 1944. Fleming died in
1955. He is work opened up a vast new field of research; scientists all over
the world began to work on all the known moulds.
Dr. S.A. Waksman,
a Russian-born American doctor discovered streptomycin, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1952.
Many other
discoveries are accidental for example: X-rays were accidentally discovered by
roentgen, Velcro was discovered by George De Mestral and so on.
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