The Drugs of Microbial Origin

Tremendous progress has been made in the past decade in the development of new disease-preventing agents. Foremost among such agents arc penicillin and strc^ptomycin, both of microbial origin. Other antibiotic substances of siinilar origin, such as chloromycetin^ aurcomycin, and terramycin^ are becoming especially valuable. Still others, including bacitracin, subtilin, ]:>olymyxin, and circulin, oiler jjromisc for special apj)lications. Although the new disease-preventing drugs are saving untold lives, there are yet many afflictions which take their toll and remain unchallenged. The quest for useful drugs among the byproducts of micro-organisms was tremendously advanced by the findings of Professor Alexander Fleming, a bacteriologist working at St. Mary's Hospital, London, in 1928. Investigating staphylococci, which cause boils, carbuncles, and septicemia in man, he observed that a contaminating bkiegreen Penicillium inhibited the growth of these disease-producing germs. As a result of his discovery of the antibiotic penicillin, attention was drawn to the possibility of employing the product of one microbe to control or prevent the growth of another. It took the destruction of war, hov/ever, and its quickened search for new therapeutic agents, to bring penicillin into its rightful prominence as one of the greatest medical and scientific discoveries of all time.