History of the Antibiotic Era

Running head: HISTORY OF THE ANTIBIOTIC ERA
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HISTORY OF THE ANTIBIOTIC ERA
Introduction:
With the growing prevalence of communicable disease, antimicrobials are highlighted as
the most successful form of chemotherapy in the history of medicine (Aminov, 2017). Although
history had shown a vast majority of the lives which was saved due to the discovery of
antibiotics, not all antibiotics were discovered in the lab, few of the antibiotic discovery was
observed from the ancient antibiotic exposures (Kuntz et al., 2016). These discoveries further
led to the development of novel strategies for newer antibiotics (Landecker, 2016). This paper
will provide a summary of the paper “A brief history of the antibiotic era: lessons learned and
challenges for the future” in the following paragraphs.
Summary:
The purpose of the study was to provide a brief overview of an antibiotic era from the
beginning of the era to the present situation to give a concise idea of the antibiotic resistance of
the microbes which causes the deadly chronic infection. Aminov, R. I. (2010) highlighted that
the modern antibiotic era started with the discovery of Paul Ehrlich and Alexander Fleming.
Paul discovered the idea of magic bullet which is used to treat sexually transmitted disease
caused by the spirochete Treponema palladium. On the other hand, Alexander Fleming
discovered penicillin from the antimicrobial activity of penicillium notum. The first hospital
used antibiotic Pyocyanase prepared by Emmerich and Löw from the Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
However, Aminov, R. I. (2010) stated that because of the extensive use of these antibiotics led to
the development of the antimicrobial resistance in a diverse range of microbes. Even before
extensive use of the penicillin, the observation suggested that the gram-positive microbes are
able to destroy beta-lactam ring by the production of beta-lactamase enzyme which further led to
the fact that bacteria can develop different resistance strategies. A considerate number of