Penicillin's birthday

The invention of antibiotics was a new milestone in the development of medicine and pharmacology The first drug that effectively combats microorganisms harmful to humans was isolated from the mold Penicillium notatum For the creation of penicillin in 1945, scientists A Fleming, HW Flory and EB Chain received the Nobel Prize But the palm in this discovery still belongs to the English bacteriologist Alexander Fleming, who discovered that mold is capable of synthesizing a substance that kills infectious agents On September 13, 1929, the scientist gave a presentation at the University of London This date marks the annual celebration of the birthday of penicillin Fleming's report did not arouse enthusiasm among the scientific community The reason for the skepticism of colleagues was the rapid destruction of mold during the production of medicines from it After 9 years, Flory and Chain were able to obtain purified penicillin, which was suitable for creating pharmaceuticals This became a salvation for soldiers who participated in World War II and civilians whose bodies could not cope with bacteriological infection on their own The drug was tested on animals Penicillin was first administered to a person suffering from sepsis in 1941, and in 1942 to a patient dying of meningitis The therapeutic characteristics of the drug were appreciated by doctors in many countries, where the number of lives saved was not tens, but hundreds of people Penicillin began to be produced on an industrial scale in the USA in 1943 In the same year, the production of its analogue called “Crustosin” began in the USSR, and the establishment of technology for the production of the antibiotic began However, the Soviet drug caused fever in patients Therefore, in 1945, the Research Institute of Epidemiology and Hygiene of the Red Army began producing penicillin according to the Western model In the 1940s, scientists noted that tiny doses of medicine were no longer enough to fight staphylococci and streptococci Pathogenic microorganisms developed resistance to the drug, so stronger modifications of penicillin were created: ampicillin appeared in the 1950s, and amoxicillin was released to the market in 1972 Microbes have learned to adapt to the effects of antibiotics, so new, stronger drugs are regularly invented in laboratories They are available in a variety of dosage forms: tablets, capsules, granules for suspension and powder for injection Modern drugs are widely used for the treatment of infectious processes of various localizations in adults and children, as well as in postoperative disease prevention Despite the development of resistance by pathogens to treat a number of pathologies, such as endocarditis (inflammation of the heart due to streptococcal infection), penicillin, which was discovered by A Fleming back in 1928, is still used