After isolating the mold and identifying it as belonging to the Penicillium genus, Fleming obtained an extract from the mold, naming its active agent penicillin. He determined that penicillin had an antibacterial effect on staphylococci and other gram-positive pathogens. Fleming published his findings in 1929 (3).

Three of the four companies that still produce the active pharmaceutical ingredient for benzathine penicillin G are located in China. These are North China Pharmaceutical Group Semisyntech Co. Ltd, CSPC Pharmaceuticals Group Ltd. and Jiangxi Dongfeng Pharmaceutical Co..

While working at St Mary’s Hospital in London, Scottish physician Alexander Fleming was the first to experimentally discover that a Penicillium mould secretes an antibacterial substance, and the first to concentrate the active substance involved, which he named penicillin in 1928.

Penicillin was discovered in London in September of 1928. As the story goes, Dr. Alexander Fleming, the bacteriologist on duty at St. Mary’s Hospital, returned from a summer vacation in Scotland to find a messy lab bench and a good deal more.

Alexander Fleming

Topical iodine, bromine and mercury-containing compounds were used to treat infected wounds and gangrene during the American Civil War. Bromine was used most frequently, but was very painful when applied topically or injected into a wound, and could cause tissue damage itself.

Penicillin, the world’s first antibiotic, has since saved an estimated 200 million lives.

During the Second World War, the Germans and their Axis partners could only produce relatively small amounts of penicillin, certainly never enough to meet their military needs; as a result, they had to rely upon the far less effective sulfonamides.

Penicillin was hailed as a “miracle drug” that could save lives and effectively treat a variety of infectious diseases. Today, there are many natural and synthetic types of penicillin, which are used to treat a wide range of ailments.

One illness after another, that was tested, was cured by penicillin, which was by this time dubbed a “wonder drug.” In addition to pneumonia and blood poisoning, the major causes of death, in hospitals, during the war, strep throat, scarlet fever, diphtheria, syphilis, gonorrhea, meningitis, tonsillitis, rheumatic …

Perspective. The discovery of penicillin changed the world of medicine enormously. With its development, infections that were previously severe and often fatal, like bacterial endocarditis, bacterial meningitis and pneumococcal pneumonia, could be easily treated.

The first patient Albert Alexander, a 43-year-old policeman, was treated with penicillin on 12 February 1941. The stories normally have it that Albert Alexander had scratched his face on a rose bush, the wound had become infected and the infection had spread.

Since penicillin was, in reality, not available during the 1930s few events and lives would have been materially altered if Fleming had missed the discovery.

Without new antibiotics, common infections and minor injuries could become life-threatening and major surgeries and chemotherapy impossible because the treatments we have been using for years are no longer effective.

Penicillin Today Penicillin and penicillin-type drugs are still widely used today, although resistance has limited their use in some populations and for certain diseases.

1. Penicillium mold naturally produces the antibiotic penicillin. 2. Scientists learned to grow Penicillium mold in deep fermentation tanks by adding a kind of sugar and other ingredients.

But it was not until 1928 that penicillin, the first true antibiotic, was discovered by Alexander Fleming, Professor of Bacteriology at St. Mary’s Hospital in London.

Penicillin was first used to treat bacterial infections in 1942 and is derived from the fungus Penicillium sp. Nearly every bacterium has a peptidoglycan cell wall. The composition of the cell wall differs depending on the type of organism, so penicillin does not affect other organisms.