Penicillin is a group of antibiotics produced from the fungus penicillium which serve to cure and prevent life-threatening bacterial infections. Although excessive use causes bacteria to become resistant to the fungus, it has saved more lives than any other medication, and in general antibiotics have prolonged human life expectancy. Many deaths during World War I (1914-1918) were due to pneumonia infections or gunshot wounds. In the Second, that percentage plummeted thanks to the discovery of penicillin.
Penicillin, a sought-after stroke of luck
Humans have used plants and fungi to treat diseases for millennia. Already in the 19th century, European scientists discovered that some substances could kill bacteria. The numerous casualties from infections during the First World War led Scotsman Alexander Fleming to seek to prevent these deaths, for which he studied the staphylococcus bacteria. On September 28, 1928, returning to his laboratory after a trip, he saw something strange in his containers: there where the fungus penicillium had contaminated the sample, the germs had disappeared. Thus he discovered that said mold produced a substance that killed staphylococcus bacteria, but also streptococcus, meningococcus and the diphtheria bacillus. The strain he discovered would prove to be the most effective bactericide.
However, it was ten years before Fleming and his companions realized the importance of the discovery. When the scientist published his study in the British Journal of Experimental Pathology In 1929, he suggested that penicillin could serve as a bactericide, but leaned more toward its ability to isolate cultures in the laboratory. For a decade it was used only as a topical disinfectant for superficial wounds and a research tool, until Cecil George Paine’s experiments demonstrated its effectiveness in treating ophthalmia in babies and adults.
The need to treat the wounded during World War II revived penicillin research. Oxford University scientists Ernst Boris Chain, Howard Walter and Norman Heatley managed to purify the fungus in 1939 with the participation of a group of women, the “penicillin girls”. In May 1940 they tested the effectiveness of the active ingredient in eight mice, which they infected with streptococci. Only those who had received the antibiotic survived. After that, the discovery was tested in humans. Although the first patient died, it was effective in five others.
The war promoted the cure
In the middle of the world war, neither the British government nor industry could mass produce penicillin, so Florey and Heatley crossed the Atlantic in search of help. The United States Committee on Medical Research promised government support for pharmaceutical companies that developed large-scale production methods for the antibiotic. The American pharmaceutical company Pfizer became the main producer. The US Government organized the distribution and reserved it mainly for military use. At Oxford, Florey independently produced penicillin to aid the British Army.
London and Washington were concerned that the penicillin formula did not fall into enemy hands, but the information eventually leaked through the media. The English did not want to patent the cultivation and purification methods of the fungus because they considered it a common good of humanity, while American pharmaceutical companies did register their processes.
In honor of the discovery, Fleming, Chain and Florey received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1945. Fleming accumulated the merit because the United Kingdom needed a hero: the Scot had a better profile than Chain, a German Jew, and Florey, an Australian. In the acceptance speech, the scientists acknowledged that World War II had ushered in the era of antibiotics.
Over time, infectious diseases such as pneumonia, tuberculosis or gastroenteritis ceased to be the main cause of death in Europe, and the use of penicillin expanded to treat respiratory, ear, skin or gum infections, and ailments such as diphtheria. It is also used as a work tool in laboratories. It is now estimated that penicillin and the antibiotics discovered later have almost doubled humanity’s life expectancy.