What Happened Before Penicillin? How Antibiotics Changed Modern Medicine
Introduction — Before Penicillin Today, a bacterial infection can often be treated with antibiotics prescribed by a doctor. Medicines such as penicillin and other antibiotics have become an important part of modern healthcare. But before antibiotics became available, many bacterial infections were far more difficult to treat. A cut, wound, or surgical infection could sometimes develop into a serious illness. Pneumonia and other bacterial diseases could become life-threatening because doctors had very few medicines that could directly stop the bacteria responsible for the infection. Medical care could include cleaning wounds, using antiseptics, providing supportive care, and relying on the body's own immune defenses. Some earlier antimicrobial treatments existed, but they did not provide the broad and reliable treatment options that modern antibiotics would later offer. The story began to change in 1928, when Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming noticed something unus...
