The Discovery of Antibiotics
Learn how antibiotics were discovered.
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In August 1928, before leaving for vacation, Scottish microbiologist Alexander Fleming stacked his cultures of infection-causing Staphylococcus bacteria on a laboratory bench. When he returned to work a few weeks later, Fleming noticed that one culture had been contaminated with Penicillium fungus, and that the colony of Staphylococcus surrounding it had been destroyed! Fleming named the bacteria-killing substance penicillin, and he suggested that it could be used to treat bacterial infections in humans.
When Fleming published his discovery in 1929, his article had little immediate impact. Subsequent experiments struggled to isolate the antibiotic agent (i.e., the compound that actually killed bacteria) from the fungus. As a result, Fleming eventually concluded that ...