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In this article we will discuss about the history of the development of antibiotics.
There are several ways of killing the microorganisms such as sterilization, pasteurization by using high temperature, UV light, high pressure, steam, chemicals, etc. However, when the pathogenic microbe is inside the human body none of these methods are feasible except using antimicrobial chemotherapeutic agents that include antibiotics (of microbial origin) and artificially synthesised compounds (drugs).
Beginning of chemotherapy dates back to the work of a German physician, Paul Ehrlich (1854- 1915). He propounded that a chemical which kills pathogens but not human cells can be used for the control of a disease.
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However, he hoped that a dye, tryphan blue, which was active against the trypanosome and showed toxicity probably as “magic bullet” (binding around the pathogen and destroying them), could be used therapeutically.
Subsequently he tested a large number of arsenicals against syphilis-infected rabbits and found them active against syphilis. In 1927, a German chemical industry, I.G. Farben industry, started producing a large number of chemicals and other dyes under the guidance of Gerhard Domagk.
Domagk found that Prontosil Red (a new dye for staining leather) was nontoxic against animals and toxic against streptococci and staphylococci. He published this result in 1935. In 1935 a French scientist, Therese Trefouel found that Prontosil Red was converted in the body to sulfanilamide which is the active compound. For the discovery of this sulfa drugs, Domagk was awarded Nobel Prize in 1939.
In 1896, penicillin was discovered by a 21 year old French medical student named Ernest Duchesne but his work was forgotten. It was rediscovered by a Scottish physician Alexander Fleming.
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During the First World War, Fleming was interested to find out such compounds that would kill pathogens causing wound infection. Surprisingly, one day on 28th September 1928, he found that Penicillium notatum (a fungus) colonized the Petri plates inoculated with staphylococci and inhibited the growth of the later.
From this observation a new era of medical microbiology was borne. Fleming observed that in the area where secondary metabolites were secreted, the bacterial cells of staphylococci were destroyed and in that area there developed a clear inhibition zone. He tried to isolate the inhibitory active compound to which he called penicillin but he was not successful.
He published several papers upto 1931, and left the research work later on. Fleming’s work was much appreciated throughout the world. In 1939, H. Florey who was Professor of pathology at Oxford University and busy in testing antibacterial activity of sulfonamides, lysozymes and others, thoroughly studied the papers of Fleming.
Thereafter, one of the associates of Florey, named Ernst Chain obtained P. notatum from Fleming, and started culturing the fungus and purifying penicillin. Florey and Chain jointly contributed a lot.
They were much helped by a biochemist, Norman Heatley. Heatley developed the technique for assay and purification of crude penicillin for further experimentation.
In 1940, Florey and Chain found that mice suffering from staphylococci or streptococci survived well when injected with penicillin. Thereafter, successful human trials were also reported by them. In 1945, Fleming, Florey, and Chain were awarded Nobel Prize for the discovery and production of penicillin.
In 1944, Selman Waksman discovered a new antibiotic called streptomycin from Streptomyces griseus which is a member of actinomycetes. He was awarded Nobel Prize in 1952 for the discovery of streptomycin. Streptomycin helped the patients to screen about 10,000 strains of soil bacteria and fungi. Later on chloramphenicol, neomycin, tetracycline and terramycin were discovered during 1950s.
