Word: penicillin
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...absence of a human scientist with the capability to adjust experimental conditions at moment's notice, experiments might have to be repeated several times to yield results, or worse, abandoned due to their excessive costliness, against which Andorsky rails. To cite a historical example, would Alexander Fleming have isolated penicillin if he had to conduct his research via an unmanned satellite? I stake my final rebuttal on admittedly risky ground: what Andorsky dubs that "nice sentiment" about the space station being an inspiration to humanity and a symbol of "what's right with America" and the world. Andorsky fumbles...
Salk and vaccine. the words somehow belong together-like Fleming and penicillin or Einstein and relativity. So when Dr. Jonas Salk, the developer of the first effective vaccine against polio, announced eight years ago that he was coming out of retirement to tackle AIDS, many people cheered-especially the growing numbers of patients infected with hiv. Who better to lead the charge against the current plague than the conqueror of an infamous childhood scourge? Within the scientific community, though, there was more doubt than expectation. AIDS was a tougher target than polio, and few experts believed that Salk's approach...
Because she changed doctors so much, no one became familiar with her medical history and no one could diagnose what was wrong with her. Each time she went she would be sent home with Penicillin and a trite "feel better...
Before the coming of penicillin and other antibiotics, bacterial diseases simply ran their courses. Either the immune system fought them off and the patient survived or the battle was lost. But antibiotics changed the contest radically: they selectively killed bacteria without harming the body's cells. For the first time, potentially lethal infections could be stopped before they got a foothold...
...Harold Neu observed in the journal Science, "bacteria are cleverer than men." Just as they have adapted to nearly every environmental niche on the planet, they have now begun adjusting to a world laced with antibiotics. It didn't take long. Just a year or two after penicillin went into widespread use, the first resistant strain of staph appeared. As other antibiotics came along, microbes found ways to resist them as well, through changes in genetic makeup. In some cases, for example, the bacteria gained the ability to manufacture an enzyme that destroys the antibiotic...