Sabattus High School - Yearbook (Sabattus, ME)

Page 59 text:

PENICILLIN Penicillin is produced by the fermentation of common mold similar to familiar mold that forms on bread and cheese Pen 1c1llium notatum lS a mold known to house wlves as a musty smelling growth that forms on bread, cheese and over rlpe mel ons Thls unpleasant looking fungus growth 13 the producer of penicillin, most wldely useful therapeutic agent to combat in faction in man It was discovered by Dr Alexander Fleming of England in 1929 While examlning culture plates of staphylococcl he noted that one of them had become contaminated by exposure to air As a result a mold had begun to form Around th1s mold there was a clear ring M1CPOSCOplC ex aminatlons showed that the ring was completely free of bacteria Evldently the mold was glving off some substance that was death Dr Fleming made pure cultures of this mold, He conducted experiments wlth the substance it excreted to determine the effect on other bacteria He found that pen1cill1n, the name he gave to that substance, was non toxic to animals and that lt dld not damage blood corpuscles, After publishing these findings Dr Fleming turned his attention to other problems Here the fate of Penicillin rested The sulfa drugs were monopollzing the attention of chemists It was not until 1956 that systematic administration of Penicillin was pioneered by investigators at Oxford University By 1941 they had produced penicillin 1n pure enough form to justify experiments on human patients whose infections reels ted every kind of treatment including the sulfa drugs The fame of Penicillin spread, Large scale production was qulckly under taken in the United States to provide our Armed Services with this most epochal medical discovery of the age the life saver Penicillin that so often succeeds where even the famed Sulfa Drugs fail, As a Military Medicine in the treatment of war wounds and burns Penicillin is a powerful weapon against bacterial infec tlon When wounds are treated with Penicillin, the deadly microbes are quickly reduced in number, the healing process is speeded up, and a more complete restoratlon of function is obtained in the injured parts It is enormously valuable in cutting down the number of amputatlons on wounded soldiers and there is deflnite evidence to the Staphylococci colony.