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Common forms of antibiotic misuse include excessive use of prophylactic antibiotics in travelers and failure of medical professionals to prescribe the correct dosage of antibiotics on the basis of the patient's weight and history of prior use. Other forms of misuse include failure to take the entire prescribed course of the antibiotic ...
1942 – gramicidin S, the first peptide antibiotic; 1942 – sulfadimidine; 1943 – sulfamerazine; 1944 – streptomycin, the first aminoglycoside [2] 1947 – sulfadiazine; 1948 – chlortetracycline, the first tetracycline; 1949 – chloramphenicol, the first amphenicol [2] 1949 – neomycin; 1950 – oxytetracycline; 1950 – penicillin G ...
The history of penicillin follows observations and discoveries of evidence of antibiotic activity of the mould Penicillium that led to the development of penicillins that became the first widely used antibiotics. Following the production of a relatively pure compound in 1942, penicillin was the first naturally-derived antibiotic.
Other named constituents of natural Penicillium, such as penicillin A, were subsequently found not to have antibiotic activity and are not chemically related to antibiotic penicillins. [8] The precise constitution of the penicillin extracted depends on the species of Penicillium mould used and on the nutrient media used to culture the mould. [8]
Production of antibiotics is a naturally occurring event, that thanks to advances in science can now be replicated and improved upon in laboratory settings. Due to the discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming, and the efforts of Florey and Chain in 1938, large-scale, pharmaceutical production of antibiotics has been made possible.
Antimicrobial use has been common practice for at least 2000 years. Ancient Egyptians and ancient Greeks used specific molds and plant extracts to treat infection. [5]In the 19th century, microbiologists such as Louis Pasteur and Jules Francois Joubert observed antagonism between some bacteria and discussed the merits of controlling these interactions in medicine. [6]
Because of this inhibition the antibiotics are most effective when the bacteria are in the logarithmic phase of growth, where then they are synthesizing the cell wall. If the bacteria are in the stationary phase of growth, then there is no wall synthesizing in progress, and the antibiotics have much lower effect. [3]
Streptomycin, found in 1942, proved to be the first drug effective against the cause of tuberculosis and also came to be the best known of a long series of important antibiotics. A second generation of antibiotics was introduced in the 1940s: aureomycin and chloramphenicol. Aureomycin was the best known of the second generation. [citation needed]