The Discovery and Importance of Penicillin and the Development of Sulfa Drugs
Overview
The discovery of penicillin in 1928 and sulfanilamide drugs in the 1930s played a major role in treating bacterial diseases and in the creation of today's pharmaceutical industry. These chemical agents, called antibiotics, saved many lives during World War II. Though they were initially remarkable in their treatment of disease, it was soon learned that they could be harmful to humans and that the diseases they treated could become resistant to their action.
Background
Diseases have plagued human beings from the beginning of their appearance on Earth. Causes were unknown, so early humans often blamed these frightening visitations on devils or the will of the gods and frequently thought their appearance was caused by wrong behavior or portended some chaos in the future. Thousands of years later, when man had advanced enough to try to understand disease, visionary doctors suggested that disease was caused by "seeds" that were invisible. That invisibility was overcome beginning in the seventeenth century, when the microscope was invented and curious men began to look at objects through it. A man named Malpighi, an Italian, saw the movement of blood in capillaries.
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