Treatments - antibiotics penicillin

• antibiotics


  use microorganisms to defeat bacteria - use chemicals
• Penicillin 


  made from mould - penicillium

  (Lister had used on a nurse but did not make notes and stopped making the mould)
• Fleming - 1938 - discovered by accident that it killed bacteria (1939 he wrote articles)
• 8 years later - 1937 - Florey and chain researched Fleming' ideas
• 1940 - Florey and Chain experimented with mice and penicillin but they did not have enough money and it was difficult to make iin large quantities
• 1941 - Penicillin was tested on the first human (successful) but they still didn't have enough
• Mass production - Florey and Chain needed a large scale factory where penicillin could e grown
• July 1841 - Florey convinced companies in the USA to produce penicillin
• 1942 - US and Britain governments funded research because it was proven effective, they wanted penicillin for WW2
• 1944 - Penicillin is used in was to treat injured people - in D-Day landing in France
• Factors - institutions 


  US gov funded Florey's research for 5 years - develop methods for mass production
• Factors - Science


  scientist could observe the effects on staphylococcus and modify it for other bacteria
• Factors - technology


  development in ways to mass produce and store - made drugs available in quantities
• Factors - Attitudes in society


  no treatments for simple infection in WW1 - needed for WW2 - clinical trials and evidence needed before publicly available
• Factors - individuals


  Florey - frugs for everyone (didn't cost a lot)

  Chain

  Fleming
• why was penicillin important

  • effective in treating disease caused by certain bacteria
  • used to prevent infection - teeth extraction
  • the development encouraged scientists to look for moulds which could fight infection
  • once someone had mapped out its chemical structure, scientists could make synthetic versions that if slightly modified could treat specific diseases