Advances in Medicines: Magic Bullets and Antibiotics

This successful compound was released to the public and marketed as Salvarsan 606 in 1910. However, because it was still an arsenic-based drug, it remained highly poisonous, required painful injections, and could be fatal if administered incorrectly.

Gerhard Domagk and Prontosil

A simple scratch from an infected needle used to be a death sentence, which is exactly what happened to a scientist's daughter in 1935. Gerhard Domagk, a German pathologist working for the chemical giant IG Farben, discovered the second magic bullet in 1932. He found that a bright red dye called Prontosil contained an active chemical agent called Sulphonamide, which stopped bacteria from multiplying.

First, Domagk rigorously tested Prontosil on mice infected with lethal streptococcus bacteria, proving that the treated mice easily survived the infection. Then, in 1935, his own daughter Hildegard contracted severe blood poisoning from a needle. Domagk gave her the untested drug, and she made a miraculous and complete recovery.

This discovery drastically reduced death rates from bacterial infections across Europe. For example, deaths from puerperal fever (childbed fever) at Queen Charlotte's Maternity Hospital dropped from 20% down to just 4.7%. It also sparked the rapid growth of the chemical industry, leading to other sulpha drugs that were later used to cure Winston Churchill of pneumonia during the Second World War.

Alexander Fleming’s Discovery of Penicillin

We usually throw away mouldy food, but one specific type of mould ended up saving millions of lives. Alexander Fleming, a Scottish bacteriologist, had seen many soldiers die from infected wounds during the First World War. He spent years searching for chemical treatments, discovering the bacteria-killing enzyme lysozyme in human tears in 1922.

The major breakthrough happened entirely by chance in September 1928. First, Fleming went on a summer holiday, accidentally leaving a petri dish of staphylococcus bacteria uncovered on his laboratory desk. Then, upon returning, he noticed a mould called Penicillium notatum had grown on the dish. Crucially, he observed a clear ring around the mould where the bacteria had been completely destroyed.

Fleming realised this "mould juice" was an Antibiotic that was non-toxic to humans and remained effective even when heavily diluted. He published his findings in 1929 but could not take the research further. As a bacteriologist rather than a chemist, he lacked the funding and skills to isolate pure Penicillin, mistakenly believing it would be too slow-acting or ineffective when mixed with human blood.

Florey, Chain and the Development of Penicillin

Discovering a cure is only half the battle; figuring out how to extract and use it is what actually cures patients. In 1938, an Oxford University team led by Howard Florey and Ernst Chain revisited Fleming's research. Their goal was to achieve the Purification of penicillin so it could be safely injected as a reliable medicine.

First, their colleague Norman Heatley devised a creative extraction method using everyday items like milk churns, bedpans, and bathtubs to grow enough mould. Next, in May 1940, they conducted animal trials, successfully curing four mice infected with streptococcus while the untreated mice died. Finally, in February 1941, they conducted their first human trial on Albert Alexander, a policeman with severe Septicaemia.

Alexander showed massive improvement, proving the drug worked in humans, but he tragically died when the team ran out of their small supply. Realising British factories were entirely focused on producing explosives for the war effort, Florey took the research to the USA in July 1941 to seek industrial support.

The Mass Production of Penicillin

How do you turn a laboratory experiment made in bathtubs into millions of doses for soldiers on the front line? The turning point for penicillin was the massive intervention of the US government after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. They provided massive interest-free loans to 21 pharmaceutical companies to fund the Mass Production of the drug.

First, researchers at the Peoria Lab in Illinois discovered that adding corn steep liquor to the mould increased the yield tenfold. Then, in 1943, an assistant named Mary Hunt found a better strain of mould on a cantaloupe melon that produced six times more penicillin than Fleming's original strain. Finally, pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer used gigantic 10,000-gallon vats for Deep-tank Fermentation, allowing them to grow the mould rapidly on an industrial scale.

By D-Day in June 1944, enough penicillin had been produced to treat 2.3 million Allied casualties. This enormous industrial and governmental effort reduced the death rate from infected wounds in the British Army from 15% down to almost zero.