The incredible discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming. Saving mold: the history of the creation of penicillin

The incredible discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming.

In 1928, bacteriologist Alexander Fleming made an accidental discovery that was caused by an unwashed Petri dish. The soil that contaminated the experiment turned out to contain a powerful antibiotic, penicillin. And although Fleming was credited with the discovery, it was more than a decade before anyone else turned penicillin into the panacea of ​​the 20th century.

How was this "Petri dish" noticed before it was washed? How did the land get there? Who managed to transform discovered natural penicillin into a useful drug?

Accidental Discovery.

On a September morning in 1928, Alexander Fleming sat at his desk at St. Mary's Hospital.

He had just returned from a vacation, which he spent at his country house with his family. Before he went on vacation, Fleming stacked several of his petri dishes on one side of the bench so that his colleague Stuart R. Craddock could use the free space to work while he was away.

Returning from vacation, Fleming began sorting through unattended laboratory stacks to determine which ones could still be used in the work. Many were contaminated. Fleming soaked them all in a solution of Lysol (cresol soap) to eliminate bacteria and then use these dishes in further experiments.

Much of Fleming's work focused on finding a "miracle cure." There were a lot of bacteria around; Anthony Van Leeuwenheck described them in 1683. It was only at the end of the nineteenth century that Louis Pasteur confirmed that bacteria cause disease. Despite this knowledge, before Fleming, no one had yet been able to find a chemical that would kill harmful bacteria without harming the human body.

Earlier in 1922, Fleming had already made an important discovery - lysozyme. Quite by accident, when he had a runny nose, a small drop of mucus fell onto a saucer with growing bacteria. Fleming was amazed. The bacteria have disappeared. This is how a natural substance found in tears and nasal mucus was discovered that helps in the fight against germs. However, it turned out that it was very effective against bacteria that are not pathogens, and completely ineffective against disease-causing organisms. Then Fleming thought about the possibility of finding another substance that could kill bacteria without harming the human body.

And then in 1928, a former laboratory employee, D. Merlin Preece, came to see Fleming. Fleming took advantage of this situation to find out about the possibility of additional income, since Preece was already working in another laboratory. To demonstrate his research, Fleming began rummaging through a large pile of laboratory glassware and samples that he had placed in a Lysol solution and pulled out several that were not completely submerged in the bacteria-killing liquid.

And then, picking up one of the records to show Pris, Fleming noticed something strange.

During his absence, mold grew on the glass. But that in itself was not strange. But the fact that this mold seemed to kill the staphylococci (Staphylococcus aureus) located on the plate was already something. Fleming realized that this mold had untapped potential.

What kind of mold is this?

Fleming spent several weeks growing as much of this mold as he could and trying to determine what the specific substance was that killed the bacteria. In the end, it turned out that this was a rather rare type of mold, and it came to him from the laboratory below the floor in which Mr. La Touche worked.

His neighbor collected a large assortment of different types of mold for John Freeman's asthma research, and it is likely that some of the spores made their way to Fleming's laboratory. This was again a happy accident.

Fleming continued numerous experiments to determine the effect on other harmful bacteria. What was surprising was that the mold, while killing a large number of bacteria, was at the same time non-toxic to humans.

Could this be a "miracle cure"? Fleming did not know this. Although he felt the potential of his discovery and guessed about its prospects. Fleming was not a chemist and was therefore unable to isolate the active antibacterial element, which he named penicillin. Moreover, he would not be able to keep this element active long enough to use it on humans. In 1929, his work on penicillin was published, which, by and large, did not arouse scientific interest at that time.

And, nevertheless, the sloppiness of the Canadian scientist and at the same time his observation became the reasons for the great discovery.

Twelve years later.

In 1940, during the second year of World War II, two scientists at Oxford University were pursuing promising projects in bacteriology that could be expanded and continued using chemical methods. Australian scientist Howard Florey

and German refugee Ernst Chain began working with penicillin. Using new chemical methods, they were able to produce so-called "black powder" that retained its antibacterial power for longer than several days. They studied the powder for a long time and found that its use is absolutely safe for humans.

After several years of hard work, they were able to synthesize a quantity of coffee-colored powder, which they tested on 117 volunteers. This was the first, although not quite pure, but still high-quality penicillin. The first injections of the newly created drug were made on February 12, 1941. One of the English policemen cut himself with a razor while shaving. A blood infection has occurred. The first injection of penicillin helped the dying man. However, there was very little penicillin and its reserve soon ran out. The disease relapsed and the patient died. But science celebrated. Penicillin has been confirmed to work excellently against blood poisoning. After a few months, scientists managed to obtain enough penicillin to save a human life.

The front line needed a new drug immediately, so mass production began quite quickly. The use of penicillin during World War II saved many lives that could have been lost due to bacterial infections in even minor wounds. Penicillin also treated diphtheria, gangrene, pneumonia, syphilis and tuberculosis.

Fame.

Although Fleming discovered penicillin, it was only Flory and Chain who worked hard to make the product usable. Although only Fleming and Florey were knighted in 1944, all of them (Fleming, Florey and Chain) were awarded the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Additional information on the topic.

Few people know, but Soviet scientists were among the first to develop the technology for preparing penicillin. Zinaida Vissarionovna Ermolyeva achieved a lot in studying the properties of penicillin and obtaining this drug. In 1943, she set out to master the preparation of penicillin, first in the laboratory and then in the factory.

If you ask any educated person who discovered penicillin, you will hear the name Fleming in response. But if you look at Soviet encyclopedias published before the fifties of the last century, you will not find this name there. Instead of a British microbiologist, the fact is mentioned that the Russian doctors Polotebnov and Manassein were the first to pay attention to the healing effect of mold. This was the honest truth; it was these scientists who noticed back in 1871 that glaucum suppressed the reproduction of many bacteria. So who really discovered penicillin?

Fleming

Indeed, the question of who and how discovered penicillin requires more detailed study. Before Fleming, and even before these Russian doctors, Paracelsus and Avicenna knew about the properties of penicillin. But they could not isolate the substance that gives the mold its healing powers. Only the microbiologist at St. Hospital succeeded in this. Maria, that is, Fleming. And the scientist tested the antibacterial properties of the discovered substance on his assistant, who had sinusitis. The doctor injected a small dose of penicillin into the maxillary cavity and after three hours the patient’s condition improved significantly. So, Fleming discovered penicillin, which he reported on September 13, 1929 in his report. This date is considered the birthday of antibiotics, but they began to be used later.

Research continues

The reader already knows who discovered penicillin, but it is worth noting that it was impossible to use the product - it had to be purified. During the cleansing process, the formula became unstable, the substance lost its properties very quickly. And only a group of scientists from Oxford University coped with this task. Alexander Fleming was delighted.

But then the scientists were faced with a new task: the mold grew very slowly, so Alexander decided to try another type of mold, simultaneously discovering the enzyme penicillase, a substance capable of neutralizing penicillin produced by bacteria.

USA vs England

The one who discovered penicillin was unable to launch mass production of the drug in his homeland. But his assistants, Flory and Heatley, moved to the United States in 1941. There they received support and generous funding, but the work itself was strictly classified.

Penicillin in the USSR

All biology textbooks write about how penicillin was discovered. But nowhere will you read about how the drug began to be produced in the Soviet Union. There is, however, a legend that the substance was needed to treat General Vatutin, but Stalin banned the use of the overseas drug. In order to master production as soon as possible, it was decided to buy technology. They even sent a delegation to the US Embassy. The Americans agreed, but during the negotiations they raised the price three times and valued their knowledge at thirty million dollars.

Having refused, the USSR did what the British did: they launched a canard that the domestic microbiologist Zinaida Ermolyeva produced crustozin. This drug was an improved one that was stolen by capitalist spies. This was pure fiction, but the woman actually established the production of the drug in her country, although its quality turned out to be worse. Therefore, the authorities resorted to a trick: they bought the secret from Ernst Chain (one of Fleming’s assistants) and began to produce the same penicillin as in America, and consigned crustozin to oblivion. So, as it turns out, there is no answer to the question of who discovered penicillin in the USSR.

Disappointment

The power of penicillin, which was so highly valued by the medical luminaries of that time, turned out to be not so powerful. As it turned out, over time, microorganisms that cause diseases acquire immunity to this drug. Instead of thinking about an alternative solution, scientists began to invent other antibiotics. But to this day it has not been possible to deceive microbes.

Not long ago, WHO announced that Fleming warned about the excessive use of antibiotics, which can lead to the fact that the drugs will not be able to help with fairly simple diseases, because they will no longer be able to harm microbes. And finding a solution to this problem is the task of other generations of doctors. And we need to look for it now.

The creator of penicillin is considered to be the British bacteriologist Alexander Fleming, who was one of the first to discover the medicinal properties of mold and published his discovery in 1929. However, the antibacterial effect of the Penicillium mold fungus was known back in the time of Avicenna, in the 11th century. And in the 70s of the 19th century, the properties of mold were widely used by Russian doctors Alexei Polotebnov and Vyacheslav Manassein to treat skin diseases.

However, it was only possible to isolate a medicinal substance from mold in 1929. But this was still not stable penicillin in its pure form. Therefore, Alexander Fleming shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945 with Howard Florey and Ernest Cheney. Scientists have developed methods for purifying the antibiotic and launched the production of penicillin in the United States.

Meanwhile, as often happens in history, the creator of Soviet penicillin, the outstanding microbiologist Zinaida Ermolyeva, turned out to be undeservedly forgotten. But it was she who managed not only to create a high-quality domestic antibiotic, which turned out to be 1.4 times more effective than the Anglo-American one, but also to organize its mass production during the terrible war years for the country.

What did the music inspire?

As Zinaida Ermolyeva herself recalled, her choice of profession was influenced by the story of the death of her favorite composer, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who, as you know, died of cholera. Therefore, the fight against this terrible disease became her life’s work. After graduating with a gold medal from the Mariinsky Women's Gymnasium in Novocherkassk, young Zinaida entered the medical faculty of Don University, after which in 1921 she remained to work as an assistant at the department of microbiology.

At the same time, Ermolyeva was in charge of a department of the North Caucasus Bacteriological Institute.

When a cholera epidemic broke out in Rostov-on-Don in 1922, she, ignoring the possibility of infection, conducted research to study the causative agent of this deadly disease. In addition, she conducted a very dangerous experiment with self-infection. In the protocol of one of them, the scientist wrote: “The experiment, which almost ended tragically, proved that some cholera-like vibrios, while in the human intestine, can turn into true cholera vibrios that cause disease.”

By the way, then cholera vibrios were found in the Rostov water supply. And the research of Zinaida Vissarionovna Ermolyeva served as the basis for the development of recommendations for the chlorination of drinking water.

In 1922, Zinaida Ermolyeva conducted a dangerous experiment with self-infection with Vibrio cholerae. Photo: Wikipedia

In 1925, Zinaida Vissarionovna moved to Moscow to organize and head a department at the Biochemical Institute of the People's Commissariat of Health. The scientist's modest luggage consisted of a single suitcase with five hundred cultures of cholera and cholera-like vibrios.

How to save Stalingrad

“Ermolyeva worked in two directions: she studied the causative agent of cholera and developed the domestic drug penicillin,” says head of the Department of Microbiology and Virology No. 2 of Rostov Medical University, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor Galina Kharseeva. - In 1942, the fascist occupiers attempted to infect the water supply of Stalingrad with Vibrio cholera. A landing party consisting of epidemiologists and microbiologists, led by Zinaida Vissarionovna Ermolyeva, was urgently sent there. In flasks they carried bacteriophages with them - viruses that infect the cells of the cholera causative agent. Ermolyeva's echelon came under bombing. A lot of medicines were destroyed.”

I had to restore the lost drugs. The most complex microbiological production was established in the basement of one of the buildings. Every day, 50 thousand people took cholera phage along with bread. Ermolyeva personally taught female nurses how to get vaccinated. We read articles on the radio on the prevention of gastrointestinal diseases. Water wells were thoroughly chlorinated. Thanks to competently carried out anti-epidemic measures, an outbreak of cholera in Stalingrad was prevented.

A weapon called "Crustozin"

“During the Great Patriotic War, the majority of deaths of wounded soldiers were due to purulent-aseptic complications. They didn’t know how to fight them back then. The Allies did not sell us foreign penicillin preparations,” Galina Kharseeva continues her story.

The government instructed Ermolyeva, who then headed the All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine, to create a domestic analogue of the antibiotic. And she did it. Thus, in 1942, the first Soviet antibacterial drug called “Krustozin” appeared, and already in 1943 it was launched into mass production.

“The use of this drug in the military has dramatically reduced the mortality and morbidity associated with purulent infection. Almost 80% of the wounded began to return to duty. The drug invented by Ermolyeva was studied by foreign scientists in the late 40s and came to the conclusion that it was more effective than overseas penicillin. Then Zinaida Ermolyeva received the honorary name - Madame Penicillin,” added Galina Kharseeva.

The drug invented by Ermolyeva was studied by foreign scientists in the late 40s and came to the conclusion that it was more effective than overseas penicillin. Photo: From personal archive va Zinaida Ermolyeva

Where can I get mold?

There is a legend: in 1942, a young general from Stalin’s inner circle approached Zinaida Vissarionovna. His little daughter was seriously ill - the child had a high fever for a very long time. The doctors were powerless, and the general accidentally learned about the new drug.

Ermolyeva replied that she could not give him Krustozin, since the medicine had not passed clinical trials. But the general insisted. And Ermolyeva took a risk. The girl woke up and even recognized her father. It was necessary to continue treatment. But there was very little medicine.

As Tamara Balezina, a laboratory employee, recalled those days, mold to produce the drug was collected wherever they could - on the grass, in the ground, on the walls of a bomb shelter. As a result, the child was saved. In gratitude, the general offered Ermolyeva a new apartment. But the scientist refused and asked only for one thing - to save her former but still beloved repressed husband, virologist Lev Zilber, from prison.

According to another version, Ermolyev’s ex-wife turned to Stalin with a request to pardon.

But he’s married to someone else and won’t come back to you,” he was surprised.

Science needs Lev Zilber,” answered Zinaida Vissarionovna.

In March 1944, on the eve of his 50th birthday, Lev Zilber was released, apparently thanks to a letter about the scientist’s innocence sent to Stalin, which was signed by a number of well-known people in the country. Later he was awarded the Stalin Prize.

Zinaida Ermolyeva was born in 1898 in the Volgograd region. She graduated with a gold medal from the Mariinsky Women's Gymnasium in Novocherkassk and the Faculty of Medicine of Don University. She studied cholera and discovered a luminous cholera-like vibrio that bears her name. In 1942, she received penicillin for the first time in the USSR. From 1952 until the end of her life, Zinaida Ermolyeva headed the Department of Microbiology and the Laboratory of New Antibiotics at the Russian Medical Academy of Postgraduate Education. Author of more than 500 scientific papers and six monographs. She became the prototype of the heroine of Veniamin Kaverin’s novel “Open Book”. Died in 1974

Everyone knows about penicillin. This antibiotic has saved many lives. But today it is no longer so popular, as more modern medicines have appeared. However, despite this, it can still be found in the pharmacy. Why is that? The fact is that penicillin helps much better with purulent infections and some inflammations than other antibiotics. In addition, it is safer for the human body. We will tell you more about penicillin and the history of its discovery in this article.

Penicillin is the first antibiotic that was discovered at the beginning of the 20th century. It was discovered by one famous bacteriologist - Alexander Fleming. During the war he worked as a military doctor. And at that time there were no antibiotics, so many people died due to blood poisoning, inflammation and complications. Fleming was very upset by this and he began to work on creating a medicine that could save people from various infections.

Thanks to his talent and perseverance, Fleming was already famous in scientific circles by the age of 20. At the same time, he was a terrible slob, but oddly enough, this was precisely what played a decisive role in his discovery. At that time, all experiments with bacteria were carried out in the simplest bioreactor (Petri dish). This is a wide glass cylinder with low walls and a lid. After each experiment, this bioreactor had to be well sterilized. And then one day Fleming got sick and during the experiment he sneezed, right into this Petri dish, into which he had already placed a bacterial culture. A normal doctor would immediately throw everything away and sterilize everything again. But Fleming did not do this.

A couple of days later, he checked the cup and saw that in some places all the bacteria had died, namely where he had sneezed. Fleming was surprised by this and began to work on it in more detail. A little later, he discovered lysozyme - a natural enzyme in the saliva of humans, animals and some plants, which destroys the walls of bacteria and dissolves them. But lysozyme acts too slowly, and not on all bacteria.

As mentioned above, Fleming was a slob and very rarely threw away the contents of Petri dishes. He did this only when the clean ones had already run out. And then one day he went on vacation, and left all the cups unwashed. During this time, the weather changed many times: it got colder, warmer, and the humidity level increased. Because of this, fungus and mold appeared. When the scientist returned home, he started cleaning and noticed that in one cup with staphylococci there was mold that killed these bacteria. By the way, this mold was also introduced completely by accident.

Until the 40s, Fleming actively studied his new discovery and tried to understand production technology. And he had to fail many times. Penicillin was very difficult to isolate, and its production was not only expensive but also slow. Therefore, he almost abandoned his discovery. But doctors from Oxford University saw the drug's future potential and continued Fleming's work. They disassembled the technology for the production of penicillin, and already in 1941, thanks to this antibiotic, the life of a 15-year-old teenager who had blood poisoning was saved.

As it turned out later, similar studies were also carried out in the USSR. In 1942, penicillin was obtained by Zinaida Ermolyeva, a Soviet microbiologist.

By 1952, the technology had been improved, and this antibiotic could be purchased at any pharmacy. It has become widely used to treat various inflammations: pneumonia, gonorrhea, and so on.

We all know that antibiotics destroy not only pathogenic microbes, but also our microflora, that is, beneficial microbes. Penicillin works completely differently. It does not cause any harm to the human body and only acts on bacteria. This antibiotic blocks the synthesis of peptidoglycan, which takes part in the construction of new bacterial cell walls. As a result, the proliferation of bacteria stops. Our cell membranes have a different structure, so they do not react in any way to the administration of the drug.

A lot of time has passed since the creation of penicillin. Scientists have already discovered the fourth generation of antibiotics. Therefore, most doctors began to make complaints about penicillin - they say it is no longer effective, since the bacteria are accustomed to it. In addition, it disrupts the intestinal microflora. But is this really so?

Doctors are right about the fact that antibiotics disrupt the intestinal microflora. But we should not forget that today there are special preparations that help restore this microflora. In addition, antibiotics are no more harmful than smoking, alcohol, and so on.

Allergy to penicillin

A person can have an allergic reaction to any medicine. Therefore, taking any medication, especially antibiotics, should be prescribed and monitored by a doctor.

An allergic reaction to penicillin manifests itself as follows:

• signs of hives may appear;
• anaphylaxis;
• attacks of suffocation;
• angioedema;
• fever.

To avoid such symptoms, it is recommended to conduct an allergy test before prescribing treatment with penicillin. To do this, you need to inject a small amount of antibiotic into the patient and see what the body’s reaction will be. In small quantities, the drug will not cause any harm, so there is no need to worry that the sample may cause one of the above symptoms.

It is also worth noting that an allergy to penicillin may disappear over time. This is evidenced by some studies conducted by specialists.

As you can see, penicillin is a very useful antibiotic. During the time that it existed, this medicine was able to save many lives. It is prescribed for inflammatory processes. Since its discovery, it has been improved several times. Due to this, the microbes have not yet adapted to it. This is the reason for the highly effective action of this antibiotic.

At the beginning of the last century, many diseases were incurable or difficult to treat. People died from simple infections, sepsis and pneumonia.
Wikimedia Commons/Carlos de Paz ()

A real revolution in medicine occurred in 1928, when penicillin was discovered. In all of human history, there has never been a drug that has saved as many lives as this antibiotic.

Over the course of decades, it has cured millions of people and remains one of the most effective medications to this day. What is penicillin? And to whom does humanity owe its appearance?

What is penicillin?

Penicillin is part of the group of biosynthetic antibiotics and has a bactericidal effect. Unlike many other antiseptic drugs, it is safe for humans, since the fungal cells that make up it are fundamentally different from the outer shells of human cells.

The action of the drug is based on inhibition of the vital activity of pathogenic bacteria. It blocks the substance peptidoglycan they produce, thereby preventing the formation of new cells and destroying existing ones.

What is penicillin for?

Penicillin is capable of destroying gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria, anaerobic bacilli, gonococci and actinomycetes.


Since its discovery, it has become the first effective drug against pneumonia, skin and biliary tract infections, anthrax, ENT diseases, syphilis and gonorrhea.

Nowadays, many bacteria have managed to adapt to it, mutated and formed new species, but the antibiotic is still successfully used in surgery to treat acute purulent diseases and remains the last hope for patients with meningitis and furunculosis.

What does penicillin consist of?

The main component of penicillin is the mold fungus penicillium, which forms on products and leads to their spoilage. It can usually be seen as a blue or greenish colored mold. The healing effect of the fungus has been known for a long time. Back in the 19th century, Arab horse breeders removed mold from damp saddles and smeared it on the wounds on the backs of horses.

In 1897, the French doctor Ernest Duchesne was the first to test the effects of mold on guinea pigs and managed to cure them of typhus. The scientist presented the results of his discovery at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, but his research did not receive the approval of medical luminaries.

Who discovered penicillin?

The discoverer of penicillin was the British bacteriologist Alexander Fleming, who managed to completely accidentally isolate the drug from a strain of fungi.


For a long time after the discovery, other scientists tried to improve the quality of the drug, but only 10 years later, bacteriologist Howard Flory and chemist Ernst Chain were able to produce a truly pure form of the antibiotic. In 1945, Fleming, Florey and Chain received the Nobel Prize for their achievements.

History of the discovery of penicillin

The history of the discovery of the drug is quite interesting, since the appearance of the antibiotic was a happy accident. During those years, Fleming lived in Scotland and was engaged in research in the field of bacterial medicine. He was quite messy, so he didn’t always clean up the test tubes after tests. One day, a scientist left home for a long time, leaving Petri dishes with staphylococcus colonies dirty.

When Fleming returned, he found that mold was growing on them, and in some places there were areas without bacteria. Based on this, the scientist came to the conclusion that mold is capable of producing substances that kill staphylococci.

Wikimedia Commons/Steve Jurvetson ()
The bacteriologist isolated penicillin from fungi, but underestimated his discovery, considering the manufacture of the medicine too difficult. The work was completed for him by Flory and Chain, who managed to come up with methods for purifying the drug and launching it into mass production.