Who was it that invented or came up with the antibiotic?

Question

Me and my friend got into an argument about this and we can't decide... so help please.

Answer 1

Fleming's discovery of penicillin is usually cited as the answer to your question, though the history is a bit more complex, as you can see from the first post above.

Answer 2

Although potent antibiotic compounds for treatment of human diseases caused by bacteria (such as tuberculosis, bubonic plague, or leprosy) were not isolated and identified until the twentieth century, the first known use of antibiotics was by the ancient Chinese over 2,500 years ago.[4] Many other ancient cultures, including the ancient Egyptians, ancient Greeks and medieval Arabs already used molds and plants to treat infections, owing to the production of antibiotic substances by these organisms, a phenomenon known as antibiosis[5] Antibiosis was first described in 1877 in bacteria when Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch observed that an airborne bacillus could inhibit the growth of Bacillus anthracis.[6] The antibiotic properties of Penicillium sp. were first described in France by Ernest Duchesne in 1897. However, his work went by without much notice from the scientific community until Alexander Fleming's discovery of Penicillin (see below).

Modern research on antibiotic therapy began in Germany with the development of the narrow-spectrum antibiotic Salvarsan by Paul Ehrlich in 1909, for the first time allowing an efficient treatment of the then-widespread problem of Syphilis. The drug, which was also effective against other spirochaetal infections, is no longer in use in modern medicine.

Antibiotics were further developed in Britain following the discovery of Penicillin in 1928 by Alexander Fleming. More than ten years later, Ernst Chain and Howard Florey became interested in his work, and came up with the purified form of penicillin. The three shared the 1945 Nobel Prize in Medicine. In 1939, Rene Dubos isolated gramicidin, one of first antibiotics to be manufactured commercially used during World War II proving highly effective in the treatment of wounds and ulcers.[7]. Florey credited Dubos for reviving his research on penicillin[7]

"Antibiotic" was originally used to refer only to substances extracted from a fungus or other microorganism, but has come to also include the many synthetic and semi-synthetic drugs that have antibacterial effects. Antibiotics can help succeed in curing many illnesses.

hehe....I figured since they were in a debate about it, I'd offer up the whole kit and kaboodle! LOL