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Penicillin Research Paper

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Penicillin is an anti-biotic that was discovered by Dr. Alexander Fleming. Penicillin has helped save millions of lives and was a major advancement in the field of medicine and science. Penicillin played a major role in World War II and helped save the lives of soldiers. Penicillin was the first anti-biotic discovered. Penicillin was a remedy for bacteria. This was a new idea because before Penicillin there was no cure for bacteria and you often died of infections and bacteria. The discovery of Penicillin was not done on purpose. Dr. Alexander Fleming came back from vacation and discovered Penicillium Notatum. This discovery would lead to the anti-biotic, Penicillin. Dr. Alexander Fleming was not the only person who worked on the study of Penicillium …show more content…
Howard Florey, Ernest Chain and Norman Heatly helped make Penicillin the anti-biotic that it is to this day. World War II had a great effect on the development of the anti-biotic. World War II caused Penicillin development to speed up and caused the anti-biotic to become produced more rapidly because of the large number of soldiers who needed the anti-biotic. Penicillin helped keep soldiers alive in World War II, unlike in World War I. This was a big difference between the two wars, and helped save soldiers lives. Without Penicillin in World War II millions of soldiers would have lost their lives to infections and bacteria, but since Penicillin was discovered by Dr. Alexander Fleming, Howard Florey, Ernest Chain and Norman Heatly the lives of the people were able to be …show more content…
Alexander Fleming was returning home from a holiday on September 3rd, 1928. Fleming began to sort through petri dishes containing colonies of Staphylococcus (American Chemical Society International Historic Chemical Landmarks. Discovery and Development of Penicillin N.D). Alexander Fleming noticed something peculiar about the petri dishes. On one area of the dish a blob of mold was growing, but there was a space around the mold that was clear (American Chemical Society International Historic Chemical Landmarks. Discovery and Development of Penicillin N.D.). The space around the zone was identified as Penicillium Notatum. Alexander Fleming stumbled upon one of the greatest medical findings in history. Through this he was able to conclude that Penicillium Notatum was able to kill harmful bacteria. Fleming is credited with the discovery of Penicillin because he was the first person to publish news about Penicillin (Robert Fogel, Ivins 2000). Howard Florey, Ernst Chain and Norman Heatley expanded on Fleming's work in 1938, at Oxford University (Robert Fogel, Ivins 2000). Howard Florey, Ernest Chain and Norman Heatly experimented on eight rats. The eight rats were given poison, four of the rats were given Penicillin, and the other four were given nothing. After the experiment was over it was discovered that three of the four rats that were give Penicillin were alive. The other four rats that were given nothing were dead. This experiment proved to the scientist that

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