Penicillin: The Accidental Discovery that Revolutionized Medicine

Penicillin, a groundbreaking antibiotic, is derived either from molds or synthesized to treat various diseases and infections. More specifically, penicillin is a substance secreted by the mold Penicillium notatum. Its discovery revolutionized medicine, providing an effective means to combat bacterial infections that were once fatal.

In 1906, Alexander Fleming, a young physician, began his research career at St Mary's Hospital in London. During World War I, Fleming served in France, where he witnessed firsthand the limitations of existing treatments for infections in wounded soldiers. This experience fueled his determination to find a more effective method to kill germs.

After the war, back at St Mary’s, Fleming's dedication led to a serendipitous breakthrough in 1928 while studying staphylococci bacteria, known for infecting wounds. By chance, he observed that a mold contaminating one of his agar dishes inhibited bacterial growth. He identified the mold as Penicillium notatum and named the antibacterial substance it produced penicillin.

Fleming's research demonstrated that penicillin was effective against various bacteria, including those causing anthrax, meningitis, and diphtheria. Despite publishing his findings, Fleming lacked the resources to further develop and produce penicillin on a large scale.

Penicillin has since become a cornerstone in treating numerous bacterial infections. It is used to combat pneumonia, meningitis, erysipelas, scarlet fever, diphtheria, blood poisoning, syphilis, gangrene, strep throat, and gonorrhea, among others. Penicillin works by targeting the bacteria’s cell wall synthesis, causing the cell to burst and die. However, it only affects actively growing and reproducing bacteria, not dormant ones.

The significance of penicillin extends beyond its immediate medical applications. Its discovery ushered in the antibiotic era, transforming public health and dramatically reducing the mortality rates from bacterial infections. Modern developments in penicillin production and the synthesis of penicillin derivatives have broadened its efficacy and reduced allergic reactions in patients. The continued evolution of antibiotics remains crucial as bacterial resistance poses an ongoing challenge.

Fleming's accidental discovery and subsequent research laid the foundation for modern antibiotics, saving countless lives and revolutionizing the field of medicine. Penicillin remains a testament to the power of scientific curiosity and perseverance.
Penicillin: The Accidental Discovery that Revolutionized Medicine

Discovery of vitamin B9

Folic acid (vitamin B9) is important in a number of human metabolic pathways as well as being needed for nucleic acid synthesis, growth and the healthy development of a foetus. Folate and its role in human biochemical functioning was first identified by researcher Lucy Wills in 1931.

Wills was born in 1888, near Birmingham England, and in 1911 became one of the first women in the country to get degrees in botany and geology from Cambridge University.

In 1930, she was working as medical research scientists in India having been especially interested in the problem of severe anemia in pregnant poor textile workers. She became aware that poor female textile workers in India were suffering in large numbers from anemia.

Wills demonstrated amazing accuracy and insistence in her investigation excluding the infectious and parasitic nature of anemia and having come to the conclusion that it was linked to bad monotonous nutrition.

In 1931, her studies in rats suggested two things seemed to help: liver supplements and a spread called Marmite. It’s made from brewer’s yeast and it’s especially rich in B vitamins. Unknown substances possessing antianemic action together with improving the pregnancy outcomes at first was designated as “the Wills Factor”.

It wasn't until late in the 1930s that folates (compounds with the same vitamin activity including naturally occurring folates and folic acid) were discovered to be the active agent in the cure of anemia.

Over time, other names were applied for this essential substance—vitamin M (“necessary for normal hemopoiesis in monkey”), vitamin Bc (“required for chicken growth”), Lactobacillus casei growth factor (“supporting Lactobacillus proliferation”), and vitamin B9.

It was first isolated via extraction from spinach leaves by Herschel K. Mitchell, Esmond E. Snell, and Roger J. Williams in 1941. (“folic” originates from Latin “folium” translating as “a leaf”).

Bob Stokstad isolated the pure crystalline form in 1943, and was able to determine its chemical structure while working at the Lederle Laboratories of the American Cyanamid Company. The cycle of industrial synthesis of folic acid was developed in 1945.
Discovery of vitamin B9

History of computed tomographic (CT) scanner

In the early 1900s an Italian radiologist named Alessandro Vallebona invented tomography which used radiographic film to see a single slice of the body. As conventional tomography evolved, it was still considered ineffective when it came to imaging soft tissues.

The computed tomographic (CT) scanner was conceived in 1967 by British engineer Sir Godfrey Hounsfield at EMI Central Research Laboratories using x-ray technology. The first patient studies were performed on Friday, October 1, 1971 in Wimbledon, England but it was not publicized until a year later.

Sir Godfrey Hounsfield continued to improve the quality of the devise and the first commercially available CT scanner was available in 1972. He co-invented the technology with physicist Dr. Allan Cormack.

However, it was the mathematical theory of Johann Radon way back in 1917, called “Radon transform,” that brought the technology to life. He demonstrated that the image of a three-dimensional object can be constructed from an infinite number of two-dimensional images of the object.

Another mathematical advancement that Hounsfield built on is the “Algebraic Reconstruction Technique,” which was formulated by Polish mathematician Stefan Kaczmarz in 1937. Stefan Kaczmarz proposed a simple method, called the Kaczmarz algorithm, to solve iteratively systems of linear equations Ax = b in Euclidean spaces. This procedure employs cyclic orthogonal projections onto the hyperplanes associated with such a system.

Both theories by Johann Radon and Stefan Kaczmarz were adopted by Hounsfield to create one of the greatest advancements in medical history.

In 1973, the first CT scanners were installed in the United States. Sir Hounsfield would go on to share the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Allan M Cormack.
History of computed tomographic (CT) scanner

Daniel Turner (1667-1740)

The English physician and surgeon was the ‘Father of Dermatology’ and wrote the book ‘Art of Surgery’. Daniel Turner was born on 18 September 1667, the third son of John and Rebecca Turner.

Daniel Turner received a degree from Yale College. He was accepted as a licentiate of the College of Physicians in London. Turner showed a considerable practical knowledge of dermatology and had a considerable concern for the welfare of skin patients.

Daniel Turner

He wrote the first dermatological text in English entitled ‘A treatise on Disease Incident on the Skin’(1714). The book was translated into both German and French. He also wrote a book on syphilis, ‘A Practical Dissertation on the Venereal Disease’ (1717).

He accepted without question that the gonorrheal urethra was ulcerated but carried the idea as stage further by applying it to women.
Daniel Turner (1667-1740)

Robert Willan - modern father dermatology

Robert Willan (1757-1812) a Yorkshire born physician –practiced at the Public Dispensary in London. He was accepted founder of British Dermatology. Willan was a general practitioner but had a special interest in dermatology; his greatest achievement was the modified Plenk’s classification of skin disease.

In 1798, Willan created his book Description and Treatment of Cutaneous Disease, with help of several artists, to draw the seminal morphological scheme for the classification of skin diseases.

Prior to Robert Willan, terms were used loosely to describe skin diseases. Two doctors might use the same descriptive term to mean different appearances. Attempts to describe disease characteristics in classification were ambiguous. Willan defined precisely the term used to describe skin disease.

Willan described the morphology of skin disease in detail, such as type of lesion, the shape and size, presence or absence of umbilication, redress, color, consistency, pattern of distribution etc.

In 1808 he published the first color plates of scaling skin disease described, in his worlds, as ‘the scaly psora by a distinct appellation; for this purpose the term psoriasis’. Willan was awarded the Fothergillian Gold Medal in 1790.
Robert Willan - modern father dermatology

History of hospital in United Kingdom

An institutional focus in a hospital setting evolved in England only during the late eighteenth century. In the various part of Britain archeologist have discovered some of the world’s first hospital.

They had excellent plumbing and sewerage systems designed for good hygiene, for some had flushing toilets where water carried away waste products.

The hospitals building are divided into separate wards, probably to isolate infectious disease.

History reveals that one of the first traces of an organized hospital in the United Kingdom was the St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, Smithfield in London, founded in 1123.

The hospital was granted a Royal Charter by King Henry VIII in 1546.

Another hospital was St. Nicholas hospitals, Harbledown, near Canterbury. It was founded in the year of 1084, by Archbishop Lanfranc, to care for the outcast, aged and infirm.

In 2010, archeologists discovered the ancient hospital of England in Winchester, Hampshire. Radio carbon analysis provided a date range of AD 960-1030 for a series of burials, many exhibiting evidence of leprosy, on the site.

Voluntary general hospitals and with them the beginning of teaching programs, began to be established in all parts of the country during the eighteenth century. Westminster (1719), Guy’s (1725) and St. George’s (1733) represented the new movement in London.
History of hospital in United Kingdom

First medical journal

In 1665 first scientific journals are published: the French Journal des scavans and the English Proceeding of the Royal Society, following on from social, economic and technological advances which had allowed a literate and leisured class to arise in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries.

Not until 1679 did the world see the first journal devoted exclusively to medicine, Nouvelles Descouvertes sur Toutes les Parties de la Medecine, begins publication.

The first serious medical journal published in Britain is Medicina Curiosa or a Variety of New Communications in Physick, Chirurgery, and Anatomy, which appeared for only two issues in London in 1684.

The physician, in the early days of the United States, who wanted to write an article for publication in a medical journal, had to look either outside the country or to a non-medical journal.

England and France were favorites among the foreign countries.

In fact it was a translation of a French medical journal, Journal de Medecine Militaire, whose first volume was published in New York around 1790 as the Journal of the Practice of Medicine and Surgery and Pharmacy in the Military Hospitals of France.

In 1788, the first transactions of a United States medial society, Cases and Observations of the Medical Society of New Haven County, were published. This was followed by the first American medical journal published in 1797 in New York: The Medical Repository. Like most early journals, it lasted only a few years.

By the 19th century, some of the now famous contemporary medical journals began to appear, such as the New England Journal of Medicine in 1812 and the Lancet in 1823.
First medical journal