Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Health and the People part 4: Modern
medicine
- Treatment of disease
- New treatments
- Penicillin
- Targetted
staphylococcus bacteria
- Hard to get rid of
- Killed many
- Discovery - 1928
- Had been discovered previously
- Lister
- Sanderson
- Nobody said
anything about it
- Lack of communication
hindering medical progress
- Alexander Fleming
- Had some samples
of staphylococcus
lying around
- Came back from holiday to find
some of it had been killed
- Realised it was penicillin fungus
that had somehow gotten in
- He wrote about the
discovery but did
nothing else
- Bad public speaker -
couldn't deal with critics
- Rediscovery - 1930s
- Florey and Chain
- Stumbled upon
Fleming's paper
- Happened to have some mould in
the building so why not try it out?
- It was a success
- Tested it on mice
- They survived!
- After their discovery, they wanted to
be able to mass produce it
- It would undoubtedly save many lives
- WWII was going on
- Soldiers would have benefitted a lot
- But they encountered many problems
- War meant very limited funds
- Given £25 by the
Government
- Equivalent to £1500 today
- Very difficult to purify
- Didn't want it falling into German hands
- However, they managed to overcome these
- Went to US
- Joined Pfizer -
pharmaceuticals company
- They had the means to
mass-produce penicillin
- Made it inexpensive
- Got enough to prove it
works on a human
- Significance
- Helped many soldiers
survive in WWII
- Started the major
production of antibioics
- Saving many
lives to this day
- Still going on
- Allowed people to focus on
other things rather than this
simple infection
- Pharmaceutical companies
became big
- Became available to
civilians quickly
- The effect of the wars
- WWI
- Problems caused
- Less funding at home
- Lots of injuries
- New, horrible wounds
- Hospitals bombed
- Where were the wounded cared for?
- On the field
- Stretcher-bearers
- WWII